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To him all women are alike. But not to Mehmet Ali. So I shall stay with him. A bargain is a bargain. He staked his life for me." Marcu knew it was the end. "All women are alike," he whined to Stan as he handed him the purse. "Take it. All women are alike," he repeated with bitterness as he made a savage movement towards his daughter.
"The same, the same, my friend," Marcu answered as he smilingly appraised his daughter. Mehmet Ali looked at the girl in frank astonishment at her size and full development; then he said as he took the oars from the corner of the hut: "And I, who thought that my friend had taken a new wife to himself! Allah, Allah! How fast these youngsters grow!
"That be right and wise," remarked Mehmet, who was by that time ready for the trip. During the whole conversation the young gipsy girl had been looking to her father when he spoke and sidewise when Mehmet answered. At fourteen Fanutza was a full-grown woman. Her hair, braided in tresses, was hanging from underneath a black fur cap she wore well over her forehead.
I had a curious instance of the honesty of the Mussulman in a dealer in bricabrac, embroideries, and stuffs with whom I used to deal at Candia. Arapi Mehmet, as he was called, i.e. Mahommed the Arabian, was a man in whom no religious fanaticism disturbed his relations with his fellow-men; no English agnostic could be more liberal, and we often had dealings in which his honesty was evident.
The Armenian protested, but in vain; the Jew maintained that the debt had been paid. In the hope of recovering his money, the Armenian had the case brought before Mehmet Ali Pasha of Egypt, a clever and learned judge. No witnesses, however, could be cited to prove that the money had either been borrowed or repaid.
She had hardly been interested in the whole affair, yet, when Mehmet Ali mentioned casually as soon as he was outdoors that he knew a man who would pay twenty pieces of gold for such a wife as Fanutza was, she became interested in the conversation. "I sell horses only," Marcu answered quietly. "Yet my friend and others from his tribe have bought wives.
The entries were verified, and it was thought that perhaps the Armenian had forgotten. Before dismissing the case, however, Mehmet Ali Pasha called in the Public Weigher and ordered that both the Armenian and Jewish merchants be weighed. This done, Mehmet Ali Pasha took note of their respective weights. The Jew weighed fifty okes and the Armenian sixty okes.
But her heart almost sank when her father pulled out his purse from his pocket and said: "Mehmet Ali, who is my best friend, has been so good to me these twenty years that I have thought to give him twenty gold pieces that he might buy himself a wife to keep his hut warm during the long winter. What say he to my friendship?" "That is wonderful!
"And, as I said," Mehmet continued after a while, "as I said, it is not fair. My friend must see that. It is not fair. So I offer you twenty gold pieces for the girl. Is it a bargain?" "She is not for sale," yelled Marcu, understanding too well the meaning of the oars out of the water. "No?" wondered Mehmet, "not for twenty pieces of gold? Well, then I shall offer five more.
He had always come alone to Mehmet's hut, therefore, the Tartar, after greeting Marcu and offering to do what his friend desired, inquired why the girl was beside the old chief. "But this is my daughter, Fanutza, Mehmet Ali," Marcu informed. "Who, Fanutza? She who was born here fourteen winters ago on the plains here?"
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