Sometimes the husband, seized suddenly with enthusiasm on seeing Baïla exhibit her grace when dancing by starlight, would say in a low voice to his wife—
“By Saint Demetrius, I believe the child will some day bring us enough to furnish a cellar with rack and tafita enough to last forever;” and a laugh of happiness would light up his dull face.
“If we should be so unfortunate as to lose her before her time, it will be ten thousand good piastres of which the Good God will rob us,” replied his worthy companion; and she shed a tear of alarm.
Baïla was thirteen years old, when a barque ascending the Incour, stopped at a short distance from the hut of the Mingrelian. A man wearing a turban descended from it. He was a purveyor for the harem, then on an expedition.
“Do you sell honey?” he said to the master of the hut, whom he found at the door.
“I gather white and red.”
“Can I taste it?”
The honest Mingrelian brought him a sample of both kinds.
“I would see another kind,” said the man with a turban, with a significant glance.
“Enter then,” replied the father of Baïla, and whilst the stranger was passing the threshold, hastening to the room occupied by his wife, he said to her—