Part 15 (1/2)
”A pretty whip, and a good whip,” he said, at last, in order that its owner might leave off cracking it.
”I'll very soon prove whether it is a good whip or not,” said the Circa.s.sian, without moving a muscle of his brown, oval-shaped, apathetic face; and with that he began to make the handle of the whip out of fine copper wire of a fantastically ornate pattern nicely studded with leaden stars.
”How will you prove that it is a good whip?” asked the merchant.
”Stop till my children come home.”
”Your _children_?”
”Yes, naturally. I should not think of proving it on other people's children.”
”You are surely not going to prove the whip on your own?”
”On whom else, then? Children should be whipped in order that they may be good, that they may be kept in order, and that they may not get nonsense into their heads. 'Tis also a good thing to train them betimes to endure greater sorrow by giving them a foretaste of lesser ones, so that when they grow up to man's estate, and real misfortune overtakes them, they may be able to bear it. My father used always to beat me, and now I bless him for it, for it made a man of me. Children are always full of evil dispositions, and you do well to drive such things out of them with the whip.”
A peculiar smile pa.s.sed across the long, olive-colored face of the Greek at these words; he seemed to be only smiling to himself. Then he fixed his sly, coal-black eyes on the sheik, and inquired, sceptically:
”But surely you don't beat your children without cause?”
”Oh, there's always cause. Children are always doing something wrong; you have only to keep an eye on them to see that, and whoever neglects to punish them acts like him who should forbear to pull up the weeds in his garden.”
”Kasi Mollah,” said the Greek, puffing two long clouds of smoke through his nostrils, ”I tell you, children are not your speciality, for you do not understand how to bring them up. In the whole land of Circa.s.sia there is none who knows how to bring up children.”
”Then how comes it that our girls are the fairest and our youths the bravest on the face of the earth?”
”Your girls would be still more beautiful and your lads still more valiant if you brought them up in the land where dwell the descendants of white-bosomed Briseis and quick-footed Achilles. O h.e.l.las!”
The Greek began to grow rapturous at the p.r.o.nunciation of these cla.s.sical names, and in his excitement blew sufficient smoke out of his chibook to have clouded all Olympus.
”I tell you. Kasi Mollah,” continued he, ”that children are the gifts of G.o.d, and he who beats a child lifts his whip, so to speak, against G.o.d Himself, for His hands defend their little bodies. You do but sin against your children. Give them to me!”
”You are a Christian; I am a Mussulman. How, then, shall you bring up my children?”
”Fear nothing. I do not want to keep them for myself; I mean rather to get them such positions as will enable them to rise to the utmost distinction. I would place them with some leading pasha, perhaps with the Padishah himself, or, at any rate, with one of his Viziers, all of whom have a great respect for Circa.s.sians.”
”Thank you. Midas, thank you; but I don't mean to give them up.”
”Prithee, prithee, call me not Midas; that is an ominous name which I do not understand. You might have learned any time these ten years, when I first came to buy pelts from you, that my name is Leonidas Argyrocantharides, and that I am a direct descendant of the hero Leonidas, who fell at Thermopylae with his three hundred valiant Spartans. One of my great-great-grandfathers, moreover, fell at Issus, by the side of the great Alexander, from a mortal blow dealt to him by a Persian satrap. If you do not believe me, look at this ancient coin, and at these others, and at this whole handful which are in my purse, all of which were struck under Philip of Macedon, or else under Michel Kantakuzenos or Constantine Porphyrogenitus, all of whom were powerful Greek emperors in Constantinople, which now they call Stambul, and built the church of St. Sophia, where now the dervishes say their prayers; and then look at the figures which are stamped on these coins, and tell me if they do not resemble me to a hair. It is so.
No, you need not give me back the money; give me rather the two little children.”
The Circa.s.sian, who had taken the purse with the simple intention of comparing the figures on the coins with the face of the merchant, drew the strings of the purse tight again at this offer, and thrust it back into the merchant's bosom.
”Thank you,” said he, dryly. ”I deal in the skins of goats, not in the skins of men.”
The face of the merchant showed surprise in all its features. Not every man possesses the art of controlling his countenance so quickly, especially when his self-command is put to so sudden and severe a test. The Georgians, more to the south, were a much more manageable race of men. With them one could readily drive a bargain for their daughters and give them a good big sum on account for their smallest children. One could purchase of them children from two to three years of age at from ten to twenty golden denarii a head, and sell them in ten years' time for just as many thousands of piastres to some ill.u.s.trious pasha. This was how Leonidas was able to build himself palaces at Smyrna.
”You talk nonsense, my worthy Chorbadzhi,” said the merchant, when he had somewhat recovered himself. ”Shall I prove it to you? Well, then, in the first place, you do not sell your children, and, in the second place, why shouldn't you sell them? If a Circa.s.sian wrapped in a bear-skin comes to you and asks you for your daughter, would you not give her to him? And at the very outside he would only give you a dozen cows for her, and as many a.s.ses. I, on the other hand, offer you a thousand piastres for them from good, worthy, influential beys, or perhaps from the Sultan himself, and yet you haggle about it.”
The sheik's face began to show wrath and irritation. He was well aware that the merchant was now dealing in sophisms, though his simple intellect could not quite get at the root of their fallacy. It was plain that there was a great difference between a Circa.s.sian dressed in bear-skin, who carries off a girl in exchange for a dozen cows, and the Captain-General of Rumelia, who is ready to give a thousand ducats for her--and yet he preferred the gentleman in bear-skins.
The Greek, meanwhile, appeared to be studying the features of the Circa.s.sian with an attentive eye, watching what impression his words had produced, like the experimenting doctor who tries the effects of his medicaments _in anima vili_.