"The odalisk herself has talked to me of these things."
"The odalisk! What is she like?" said he eagerly. "Describe her to me."
"Why, I have been describing her for this half-hour; but you would not listen. So I will go off and do my next errand."
The woman turned away, but, as she intended it should be, the officer was now in the attitude of the beggar.
"Hold, Hanoum, I will buy your perfume—But tell me what she is like in plain words. Is she of light hair?"
"Ay, as if she washed it in the sunshine and dried it in the moonlight, and as glossy as the beams of both."
"Think you she belonged to Stamboul before the siege?"
"Ay, and to the great Scanderbeg before that."
The officer was bewildered and stood thinking, until Kala interrupted him.
"But you said you would buy it, Captain."