As the vintage time drew near, the Turk went every day into his vineyard, and made his slave accompany him.
The rain had very much damaged the garden paths, and he was anxious to have them put right again. He dare not trust the work to an ordinary day laborer, as such people generally require to be paid and eat the grapes as well; but his slave he could command to work for nothing, and let him touch a single berry if he dared! And at the end of every day's work he said to him: "Show me your tongue!" for the Eger grapes are so black that they dye the tongues of those who eat of them. Poor Valentine was often sick with longing, as he stood breaking stones in the melting heat with thousands of lovely grapes smiling on every side of him, and he was unable to pluck one of them!
Meanwhile his master would be sitting in the kiosk, and as the Turks are forbidden by their religion to drink wine publicly, he only drank on the sly, with not a human soul to keep him company.
Now the Turk had a very beautiful slave, or wife, which with the Moslems is pretty much the same thing. She was called Jigerdilla, which signifies "the piercer of hearts." She was a Circassian. He had purchased her at Buda from a slave-dealer who had brought a whole shipload of female slaves from Stamboul. The only difference between a wife and a slave is that the slave works, the wife doesn't; Jigerdilla did not work.
The Turkish damsel had, from the very first, taken a fancy to the handsome, stately Hungarian whom her husband had brought into the house as a slave; but it was impossible to begin to intrigue with him there, because too many eyes were on the watch. But whenever she followed her husband into the vineyard, she could speak more freely with Valentine, especially when the meat seller had so well applied himself to the good red wine that they had to prop him up between them all the way.
Kermes Ibrahim—the butcher was called Kermes from his red beard—used sometimes bid his slave sing while he worked, not only because singing makes a man work lustily, but also, and especially, because he would thereby be preserved from the temptation of plucking the grapes. No man can sing and eat at the same time.
Sometimes, when Ibrahim was overpowered by sleep and lay stretched out full length on his carpet, Jigerdilla would join in Valentine's songs, and it is no small encouragement on a lady's part when she accompanies a gentleman's song with her own voice.
But as soon as Jigerdilla began to accompany his songs, Valentine stopped short.
"Why do you leave off?" she asked him.
"Because you've begun, and I'm afraid you'll awaken Ibrahim, and he'll beat me for it."