On the evening of the last day he led Guel-Bejaze down to the shore of
the Bosphorus as if he would take a walk with her. The woman carried her
child in her arms.
Since the woman had had a child she had acquired a much braver aspect.
The gentlest animal will be audacious when it has young ones, even the
dove becomes savage when it is hatching its fledgelings.
Halil put his wife into a covered boat, which was soon flying along
under the impulse of his muscular arms. The child rejoiced aloud at the
rocking of the boat, he fancied it was the motion of his cradle. The
eyes of the woman were fixed now upon the sky and now upon the unruffled
surface of the watery mirror. A star smiled down upon her wheresoever
she gazed. The evening was very still.
"Knowest thou whither I am taking thee, Guel-Bejaze?" asked her husband.
"If thou wert to ask me whither thou oughtest to send me, I would say
take me to some remote and peaceful valley enclosed all around by lofty
mountains. Build me there a little hut by the side of a bubbling spring,
and let there be a little garden in front of the little hut. Let me
stroll beneath the leaves of the cedar-trees, where I may hear no other
sound but the cooing of the wood-pigeon; let me pluck flowers on the
banks of the purling brook, and spy upon the wild deer; let me live
there and die there--live in thine arms and die in the flowering field
by the side of the purling brook. If thou wert to ask me, whither shall
I take thee, so would I answer.
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