"Be silent, slave!" said Djalma, turning abruptly on the sofa, as if some painful wound had been touched to the quick. Faringhea obeyed.
After the lapse of some moments. Djalma broke forth again with impatience, throwing aside the tube of the hookah, and veiling both eyes with his hands: "Your words are better than silence. Cursed be my thoughts, and the spirit which calls up these phantoms!"
"Why should you fly these thoughts, my lord? You are nineteen years of age, and hitherto all your youth has been spent in war and captivity. Up to this time, you have remained as chaste as Gabriel, that young Christian priest, who accompanied us on our voyage."
Though Faringhea did not at all depart from his respectful deference for the prince, the latter felt that there was something of irony in the tone of the half-caste, as he pronounced the word "chaste."
Djalma said to him with a mixture of pride and severity: "I do not wish to pass for a barbarian, as they call us, with these civilized people; therefore I glory in my chastity."
"I do not understand, my lord."
"I may perhaps love some woman, pure as was my mother when she married my father; and to ask for purity from a woman, a man must be chaste as she."
At this, Faringhea could not refrain from a sardonic smile.
"Why do you laugh, slave?" said the young prince, imperiously.
"Among civilized people, as you call them, my lord, the man who married in the flower of his innocence would be mortally wounded with ridicule."