"Yet my friend and others from his tribe have bought wives. Remember
that beautiful Circassian girl?" the Tartar continued without raising or
lowering his voice.
"Yes, Mehmet, we buy wives but we don't sell them."
"Which is not fair," Mehmet reflected aloud still in the same voice.
By that time they had reached the river shore. Mehmet, after rolling
together the oil cloth that had covered the boat, helped the gipsy chief
and his daughter to the stern. With one strong push of the oar on the
shore rock, the Tartar slid his boat a hundred feet towards the middle
of the stream. Then he seated himself, face towards his passengers, and
rowed steadily without saying a single word. The gipsy chief lit his
short pipe and looked over his friend's head, trying to distinguish the
other shore from behind the curtain of falling snow. The boat glided
slowly over the thickening waters of the Danube. A heavy snowstorm, the
heaviest of the year, lashed the river. When Mehmet had finally moored
his boat to the Roumanian side of the Danube, he turned around to the
gipsy chief and said:
"Be back before sundown. It shall be my last crossing of the year. For
when the sun rises the waters will be frozen still. The gale blows from
the land of the Russians."
"As you tell me, friend," answered Marcu while helping his daughter out
of the boat.
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