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CHAPTER 5 – TWO SHIRTS OF FLAME 
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I looked away discreetly. Perhaps she was right. After living the way 
she had, no one could resent the name of slut more than she. Whatever 
she had been, she was at present an honest wife and the most respectable 
woman in the village. What I objected to was not her past life but her 
lack of heart, her cruelty to the woman whose man she had taken. There 
was no time to argue... 
"Where is your village?" 
"It is three hours' distance." 
"Which way?" 
"The Tchubouk way." 
This road led away from the village and would not be in view of the 
villagers unless they returned.
"Have you any people there, and are you on good terms with them?" 
"There is my brother: once he refused to know me, but since I am 
married he has been all right." 
"You start at once for your village. The villagers won't come back for 
some time." 
"Won't you keep me as your servant?" 
I wouldn't: I did not need one. So I smuggled her out of the stable, and I 
myself walked toward the village. If I met a villager I would keep him 
talking till she had had time to go away safely. 
But the villagers did not return for an hour, after which one by one the 
urchins began to come back. But the woman had gone away, the doors 
were wide open and our house looked as if it had nothing to hide.
The similarities are too close to be credible as coincidence. A village woman of 
doubtful morals falls on the protection of an outsider, a Westernised Turk, when 
pursued by the villagers. Her protector sees the crowd off by showing no fear and 
assuming a pose he or she finds unnatural. The protector all the same insists that the 
woman leave at once for an adjacent village which is some hours’ walk away despite 
her fears and takes steps to ensure that she will get away safely.

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