Baïla was seventeen years old, with a Georgian head on a Circassian body, the voice of a syren, and the tread of a nymph—what had she to fear? Her will had become that of the pacha. Entirely cemented by habit to her love, he appeared never to think of his other odalisks, except when the Mingrelian, from caprice or petulance, revolted openly against his desires. Then, in the presence of the rebellious beauty, Djezzar would order a slave to carry to an odalisk, whom he designated, a piece of goods, which, according to the Oriental custom, announced the approach of the master, and which in accordance with our method of translating Turkish manners, we have naturalized among us by the phrase of “throwing the handkerchief.”
Formerly, at the idea of the infidelity which was to be practiced toward her, Baïla fretted and pouted in a corner with a bereaved air. Her small mouth drawn down at the corners, muttered unintelligible complaints and threats; her beautiful black eyes, with their long, vibrating lashes, were half closed, and with her head bent, and the pupils drawn back to the angle of the eyelids, she cast upon the slave, the master, and the brilliant piece of goods, a look full of anger and jealousy. There her audacity ceased.
But now, when Djezzar, to avenge himself on her, takes a fancy to be inconstant, she falls upon the stuff and the slave, tears the one and cuffs the other; and if the omnipotent pacha carries out his plan of vengeance, it frequently happens on the next day that as the price of submission, the slave is, on some pretext, bastinadoed, and the favorite of a day driven away in disgrace, too happy to escape, without, like Aysche, leaving her nose within the palace, is sent to the bazaar to become the property of the highest bidder.
Such had lately been the fate of the beautiful daughter of Amasia.
Proud in the empire she exercised over her master, Baïla became intoxicated in the triumph of her vanity. In the midst of its smoke, the remembrance of the stranger, the giaour, no longer reached her but at distant intervals.
She had remained shut up for a whole week without descending into the gardens, when one day that Djezzar had gone to raise some taxes, resuming her old promenades, she found herself unconsciously near the Azalea of Pontus.
What had become of that young Frank? Was he still in the pachalick of Shivas? Did he still entertain the plan of a second attempt, as Mariam had thought he would? He had doubtless gone, returned to his country, that singular country called France, where they say the women rule the men; she should see him no more. So much the better for both him and her.
Whilst she was in this train of reflection a roar of Haïder was heard without; it announced the return of the pacha. The latter had taken him with him, for the pleasure of letting him loose at some jackall by the way. She was preparing to return to her apartments to await there the arrival of Djezzar, when a report of fire-arms, followed by a low noise, was heard by the side of Red River.
Baïla trembled without being able to explain the cause of her emotion.
“Have you been successful in hunting?” she said to Djezzar, when they were alone.