"Fear nothing! Ibrahim sleeps soundly. I have mixed opium with his tobacco. If you fired off cannons close to his ear he would not awake. We might kiss each other over his body, and still he would not awake."
Valentine made as though he did not understand.
Then Jigerdilla began to sing a popular ballad all about love. Even in those times such ditties used to be sung, but on the sly, in the woods or the meadows; for within the walled cities the clergy forbade them, preached whole series of sermons against them, called them "flower songs," said that they only served to corrupt good manners.
And it certainly is very strange what liberties are taken in singing. If a gentleman said to a pretty woman in simple prose, "My dear, prithee give me a couple of kisses!" she would, there and then, give him an answer with her hand which would make his eyes flash fire; but if he sang the self-same sentence in an elegant manner, the lady would forthwith sit her down at the piano and play the accompaniment. And, again, if a pretty woman were to say to a gentleman, in the presence of her husband, "Taste and see how sweet my kiss is!" the husband would instantly cry vengeance, and send for sword and pistols; but when madame sings the same words in a fine soprano voice before a whole roomful of people, the husband himself is the first to applaud and cry, "Da capo!"
And Jigerdilla could sing those enticing songs so seductively that it was impossible to listen to her and remain cold.
But Valentine manfully hardened his heart, and would not accompany her.
"Can't you sing these songs, then?" asked Jigerdilla derisively.
"I know one or two of them, and have sung them quite often enough. It was for nothing but that that I was expelled from college. But I have vowed that not a single flower song shall cross my lips so long as I am in captivity."
The Turk had in his garden a fine and costly plum tree, and in those days plum trees were accounted curiosities. The fruit upon it was round and red as a rose. Gardeners call them bonameras.
Ibrahim was proud of this tree. He had told Valentine beforehand, that if he dared to pluck a single plum, he would break every bone in his body. He had destined all the fruit for the table of the pasha.