“Since you permit it,” said the merchant, “I will remain here until the sun has lost a little of its power.”
“I cannot offer you any thing but the shade. I know that the children of the prophet avoid food beneath the roof of a Christian; but instead of that you can indulge in a permitted pleasure; as my daughter is still here, she can sing for you.”
Baïla sang, accompanying herself with an instrument. The man with the turban, seated on his heels, his arms crossed on his knees, his head resting on his arms, listened with a profound and immovable attention, and when she finished, in testimony of his satisfaction, he contented himself with silently raising one finger more.
Baïla, to the sound of ivory castanets and small silver bells, then performed an expressive dance, imitating the voluptuous movements of the bayaderes of India and the Eastern almas, but with more reserve however.
Forced this time to look at her, the man with the turban was unable to disguise the impression made upon him by so much grace, suppleness and agility, and, in an irrestrainable outbreak of enthusiasm, he raised two fingers at once. They were near to a conclusion.
In this mysterious bargaining, this language of the fingers, these mutes signs were used to enable the parties to swear, if necessary, before the Russian authorities, by Christ or Mahommed, that there had been no conversation between them except about honey, furs or beaver skins.
After some more bargaining on both sides, the mother finally received the ten thousand piastres in her apron, and disappeared immediately, to conceal it in some hiding-place, careless whether she should see her daughter again or not.
Whilst she was gone the merchant glanced on the elder sister of Baïla, who had assisted at the bargaining, whilst she was kneading bread in a kneading trough.
“And she,” said he; “shall I not carry her off also?”
The elder sister, flattered in her vanity, made him a reverence.