"What you are describing, Caleb, is indeed like fairyland. But I have heard say that, because of all that fragrance in their country, the Sabæans one and all suffer from headache."
"When we suffer from headache, Cora, we burn asphalt and the hairs of a goat's beard. There is no remedy to compare with that for headache. Or else we wear the sacred amulets. Wear one, Cora: wear this amulet, which I have always worn."
"Are you afraid that I shall bewitch you?"
"Yes. I fear the Sabæan amulets. It is perhaps because of one of them that the master dreamed the bad dream which has made him ill and sad."
"Cora, I love you so much.... Will you permit me to buy you from your master?"
"If you bought me, O Caleb, I should be a faithful slave and sing and play the harp to you. But I should be unhappy, even if I were your wife and free ... because I should be so far from my master...."
"Whom I love, Caleb ... but as the flower loves the sun, as the moth loves the star ... from afar and from the depths ... without hope."
The rain poured down in an endless grey sheet. In the garden, Master Ghizla was swearing at the slaves and wading, with tucked-up tunic and lean, hairy legs, through the puddles.
Caleb rose. He said nothing and went away, his head sunk in melancholy. Then he came back and resumed:
"You would go hunting with me, Cora, and you would sit in front of me on a Sabæan stallion, which would be swift as the wind, and we should catch lion-whelps in nets and tame them with palm-wine and they would follow you about like big cats."
"I know, Cora, why you will not be my wife. It is not because you love your master. For, even if your master loved you, you would be a slave. My wife would be a free woman and reign as queen in my house. But you will not be my wife because perhaps you know the Sabæan law which prescribes that a married woman is also the wife of all her husband's brothers. But Ghizla, dear Cora, would not dare to touch even the hem of your garment."
"There was a king's daughter in our country, Cora. She was dazzlingly beautiful and was the wife of fifteen brothers, who were princes. All the fifteen of them glowed with love for her. When one of the brothers wished to tarry in her chamber, he set his stick outside the door, as a sign. Then the others passed their way.... When she wearied of their eagerness to love her, she devised a stratagem. She had sticks made for her, like the brothers'. When one of the princes left her, she placed one of these sticks outside her door. In this way she enjoyed peace.... But one day all the brothers happened to be in the square of the town at the same time. One of them went to visit her ... and found outside the door the stick of a brother ... whom he had just left in the town-square! Then he thought that his wife, the wife of the fifteen brothers, was unfaithful to them ... with a sixteenth, a stranger. And he sought his father and told him of his suspicions. But it appeared that the wife was innocent. And not only the father but the fifteen brothers and their spouse laughed at the stratagem and were happy.... But you, Cora, would never need to put a stick like mine outside your door. For I have only one brother, Ghizla, and he would not dare to touch so much as the hem of your garment."