"You say not well, Halil," cried the father, his face radiant with joy.
"So far from giving her back to me you shall keep her; yes, she shall
remain yours for ever. For if I were thrice to traverse the whole earth
and go in a different direction each time, I certainly should not come
across another man like you. Tell me, therefore, what price you put
upon her that I may buy her back, and give her to you to wife as a free
woman?"

Halil did not consider very long what price he should ask, so far as he
was concerned the business was settled already. He cast but a single
look on Gül-Bejáze's smiling lips, and asked for a kiss from them--that
was the only price he demanded.

Janaki seized his daughter's hand and placed it in the hand of Halil.

And now Halil held the warm, smooth little hand in his own big paw, he
felt its reassuring pressure, he saw the girl smile, he saw her lips
open to return his kiss, and still he did not believe his eyes--still he
shuddered at the reflection that when his lips should touch hers, the
girl would suddenly die away, become pale and cold. Only when his lips
at last came into contact with her burning lips and her bosom throbbed
against his bosom, and he felt his kiss returned and the warm pulsation
of her heart, then only did he really believe in his own happiness, and
held her for a long--oh, so long!--time to his own breast, and pressed
his lips to her lips over and over again, and was happier--happier by
far--than the dwellers in Paradise.

And after that they made the girl sit down between them, with her father
on one side and her husband on the other, and they took her hands and