The Turkish maiden could have wished for no greater good fortune, for ever since she first saw the handsome Serbian prince she had felt strange pains. In her dreams she saw nobody but him, and in the daytime she was consumed with fevers.
Stephan and the Vizier’s Daughter
Therefore she complied with her father’s wish with alacrity, and when she reached Stephan she greeted him tenderly: “Hail, O Serbian Hero! May God be with thee!” And the chivalrous prince returned the greeting: “May God help thee, O peerless Haykoona!”
The beautiful maiden then said: “O Prince Stephan, I value thee more than my black eyes! I sorrow to see thy face thus darkened and thy life so miserable in the prison-donjons of my father. Take this bottle of cooling water; bathe thy heroic visage with the liquid and drink a little of it!”
The hero took the bottle from those beauteous hands; but he was wise! Without hesitation he shattered it against the stony wall, taking great care that not a drop of the liquid should besprinkle him. The Turkish maiden flushed with anger, but a moment later she composed herself, and casting upon the prince a tender glance, she said to him sweetly: “Do, I pray thee, become a Turk and marry me! I love thee more than my black eyes.”
But Stephan answered: “I beseech thee, in thy Allah’s name, speak not so, O Princess Haykoona. I shall never turn Turk and forget my Christian faith! Yea, I am ready always to give my life for it!”
The beauteous lady turned aside impatiently, but her anger soon passed, and again looking tenderly at the young prince, she exclaimed with sudden passion, “Kiss me, O my beloved!”
But Stephan was proof against temptation, and he answered sternly: “O Turkish lady, may misfortune attend thee! Thou knowest that my faith forbids that a Christian should kiss a Turk! The skies above would burst asunder and stones would fall upon our heads!”
The vizier’s daughter really loved the prince, and although it was not easy for her haughty spirit to brook such a refusal of her advances, she presently spake again in this wise: “O Prince Stephan, truly I love thee more than my own eyes! I would not for the entire wealth of this world be baptized, but if thou wilt promise me thy love and wilt marry me I will even embrace the Christian faith! Let us take much gold from my father’s treasury and flee together to thy glorious Belgrade.”