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Title: The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite:  A Story of
Constantinople and the Caucasus

Author: Lieutenant Maturin Murray

Release Date: December, 2003  [EBook #4795]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 22, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE; OR, THE SULTAN'S FAVORITE:  A STORY OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE CAUCASUS ***




Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)



THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE:

OR, THE SULTAN'S FAVORITE.

A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus.

BY LIEUTENANT MURRAY.

BOSTON:

1851.






PUBLISHER's NOTE.--The following Novelette was originally published
in THE PICTORIAL DRAWING ROOM COMPANION, and is but a specimen of
the many deeply entertaining Tales, and the gems of literary merit,
which grace the columns of that elegant and highly popular journal.
THE COMPANION embodies a corps of contributors of rare literary
excellence, and is regarded as the ne plus ultra, by its scores of
thousands of readers.






PREFACE.





The following story relates to that exceedingly interesting and
romantic portion of the world bordering on the Black Sea, the Sea of
Marmora, and the Bosphorus. The period of the story being quite
modern, its scenes are a transcript of the present time in the city
of the Sultan. The peculiarities of Turkish character are of the
follower of Mahomet, as they appear to-day; and the incidents
depicted are such as have precedents daily in the oriental capital.
Leaving the tale to the kind consideration of the reader, the author
would not fail to express his thanks for former indulgence and
favor.






THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE.

CHAPTER I.

THE SLAVE MARKET.





Upon one of those hot, sultry summer afternoons that so often
prevail about the banks of the Bosphorus, the sun was fast sinking
towards its western course, and gilding as it went, the golden
crescents of a thousand minarets, now dancing with fairy feet over
the rippling waters of Marmora, now dallying with the spray of the
oarsmen's blades, as they pulled the gilded caique of some rich old
Mussulman up the tide of the Golden Horn. The soft and dainty
scented air came in light zephyrs off the shore of Asia to play upon
the European coast, and altogether it was a dreamy, siesta-like hour
hat reigned in the Turkish capital.

Let the reader come with us at this time into the circular area that
forms the slave market of Constantinople. The bazaar is well filled;
here are Egyptians, Bulgarians, Persians, and even Africans; but we
will pass them by and cross to the main stand, where are exposed for
sale some score of Georgians and Circassians. They are all chosen
for their beauty of person, and present a scene of more than usual
interest, awaiting the fate that the future may send them in a kind
or heartless master; and knowing how much of their future peace
depends upon this chance, they watch each new comer with almost
painful interest as he moves about the area.

A careless crowd thronged the place, lounging about in little knots
here and there, while one lot of slave merchants, with their broad
but graceful turbans, were sitting round a brass vessel of coals,
smoking or making their coffee, and discussing the matters
pertaining to their trade. Some came there solely to smoke their
opium-drugged pipes, and some to purchase, if a good bargain should
offer and a beauty be sold cheap. Here were sprightly Greeks, sage
Jews, and moody Armenians, but all outnumbered by the sedate old
Turks, with beards sweeping their very breasts. It was a motley
crowd that thronged the slave market.

Now and then there burst forth the ringing sound of laughter front
an enclosed division of the place where were confined a whole bevy
of Nubian damsels, flat-nostriled and curly-headed, but as slight
and fine-limbed as blocks of polished ebony. They were lying
negligently about, in postures that would have taken a painter's
eye, but we have naught to do with then at this time.

The females that were now offered for sale were principally of the
fair and rosy-cheeked Circassian race, exposed to the curious eve of
the throng only so far as delicacy would sanction, yet leaving
enough visible to develope charms that fired the spirits of the
Turkish crowd; and the bids ran high on this sale of humanity, until
at last a beautiful creature, with a form of ravishing loveliness,
large and lustrous eyes, and every belonging that might go to make
up a Venus, was led forth to the auctioneer's stand. She was young
and surpassingly handsome, while her hearing evinced a degree of
modesty that challenged their highest admiration.

Of course the bidding was spirited and liberal for such a specimen
of her race; but suddenly the auctioneer paused, and declared that
he had forgotten to mention one matter which might, perhaps, be to
some purchasers even a favorable consideration, which was, that the
slave was deaf and dumb! The effects of this announcement were of
course various; on some it did have a favorable effect, inasmuch as
it seemed to add fresh interest to the undoubted charms she evinced,
but other shrank back disappointed that a creature of so much
loveliness should be even partially bereft of her faculties.

"Are you deaf and dumb?" asked an old Turk, approaching the
Circassian where she stood, as though he wished to satisfy himself
as to the truth of what the salesman had announced.

The slave lifted her eyes at his approach, and only shook her head
in signification that she could not speak, as she saw his lips move
in the utterance of some words, which she supposed addressed to her.
The splendid beauty of her eyes, and the general expression of her
countenance, seemed to act like magic on the Musselman, who, turning
to the auctioneer, bid five hundred piasters, a hundred advance on
the first offer.

At this moment a person wearing the uniform of the Turkish navy,
made his way towards the stand from the centre of the bazaar, where
he had for some minutes been intently regarding the scene, and bid

"Six hundred piasters."

"Seven," said the previous bidder.

"Eight," continued the naval officer.

"Eight fifty," responded the old Turk.

"Nine hundred," said the officer, with a promptness that attracted
the attention of the crowd.

"One thousand piasters," said his competitor, as he continued to
regard her exquisite and beautiful mould, and her features, so like
a picture, in their regular and artistic lines of beauty. It was
very plain that the old Turk felt, as he gazed upon her, so silent
yet so beautiful, that she was richly worth her weight in pearls.

"A thousand piasters," repeated the vender of the slave market,
turning once more to the officer, then added, as he received no
encouraging sign from him, "a thousands piasters, and sold!"

The officer regarded her with much interest, and turned away in
evident disappointment, for the old Turk who had outbid him, had
gone beyond any means that he possessed. The purchaser handed forth
the money in a couple of small bags, and throwing a close veil over
the head of the slave, led her away through the narrow and winding
streets of old Stamboul to the water's side, where they entered a
caique that awaited them, and pulled up the harbor.

Its shooting caiques, its forest of merchantmen, and its hoard of
Turkish war ships; were changed, in a few moments of swift pulling,
for the breathless solitude of the Valley of Sweet Waters, which
opens with a gentle curve from the Golden Horn, and winds away into
the hills towards Belgrade, where the river assumes the character of
a silvery stream, threading its way through a soft and verdant
meadow on either hand, as beautiful in aspect as the Prophet's
Paradise. The spot where the Sultan sends his swift-footed Arabians
to graze on the earliest verdure that decks the face of spring.

It was up this fairy-like passage that the dumb slave was swept in
her master's caique, and by scenes so beautiful as even to enchant
her sad and silent bosom. The Turk marked well the influence of the
scenery upon the Circassian, and slowly stroked his beard with
silent satisfaction at the sight.

The caique soon stopped before a gorgeous palace, in the midst of
this fine plain, and the Turk, by a signal, summoned the guard of
eunuchs from a tent of the Prophet's green, that was pitched near
the banks of the Barbyses, that ran its meandering course through
this verdant scene. It was a princely home, the proudest harem in
all this gem of the Orient, for the old Turk had acted not for
himself in the purchase he had made, but as the agent of a higher
will than his own, and the dumb slave was led to the seraglio of the
Sultan.

The old Turk was evidently a privileged body, and following close
upon the heels of the eunuchs, he divested himself of his slippers
at the entrance of the palace, and led the slave before the "Brother
of the Sun."

The monarch was a noble specimen of his race, tall, commanding, and
with a spirit of firmness breathing from his expressive face. His
beard was jetty black, and gave a much older appearance to his
features than belonged to them. He was the child of a seraglio,
whose mothers were chosen for beauty alone, and how could he escape
being handsome? The blood of Circassian upon Circassian was in his
veins, and the trace of their nationality was upon his brow, but
there was in the eye a doomed darkness of expression that caused the
beautiful creature before him to almost tremble with fear.

"Beautiful, indeed," mused the Sultan, as he gazed upon the slave
with undisguised interest; "and how much did she cost us, good
Mustapha?"

"One thousand piasters, excellency" answered the agent, with
profound respect.

"A thousand piasters," repeated the monarch, again gazing at the
slave.

"Yes, excellency, the bids ran high."

"A goodly sum, truly, Mustapha, but a goodly return," continued the
Sultan.

"There was one fault, excellency," continued the agent, "that I
feared might disappoint you."

"And what is that, good Mustapha?"

"She is both deaf and dumb, excellency."

"A mute?"

"Yes, excellency."

"Both deaf and dumb," repeated the Sultan, rising from his divan and
approaching the lovely Circassian, actuated by the interest that he
felt at so singular an announcement.

While the old Turk stroked his beard with an air of satisfaction at
the result of his purchase as it regarded the approval of his
master, the slave bent humbly before the monarch, for though she
knew not by any word or sign addressed to her who her master was,
yet she felt that no one could assume that air of dignity and
command but the Sultan. A blush stole over the pale face of the
Circassian as the monarch laid his hand on her arm and gazed
intently upon her face, and whatever his inward thoughts were, his
handsome countenance expressed a spirit of tenderness and gentle
concern for her situation that became him well, for clemency is the
brightest jewel in a crown.

"Deaf and dumb," repeated the Sultan against to himself, "and yet so
very beautiful."

"She is beautiful, indeed, excellency," said the old Turk, echoing
his master's thoughts.

"So they sought her eagerly at the market, good Mustapha, did they
not?"

"Excellency, yes. One of your own officers bid against me heavily;
he wore the marine uniform."

"Ha! did the fellow know you?" asked the Sultan, quickly, with a
flashing eye that showed how capable that face was of a far
different expression from that which the dumb slave had given rise
to.

"I think he did not know me, excellency."

After a moment's pause the Sultan turned again to the gentle girl
that stood before him, and taking her hand, endeavored by his looks
of kind assurance to express to her that he should strive to make
her happy; and as he smoothed her dark, glossy hair tenderly, the
slave bent her forehead to the hand that held her own, in token of
gratitude for the kindness with which she was received, and when she
raised her face again. Both the Sultan and Mustapha saw that tears
had wet her cheeks, and her bosom heaved quickly with the emotion
that actuated her.

At this moment the Circassian felt her dress slightly drawn from
behind, and turning, confronted the person of a lad who might,
judging from his size, be some seventeen years of age. His form was
beautiful in its outline, and his step light and graceful; but the
face, alas! that throne of the intellect was a barren waste, and his
vacant eye and lolling lip showed at once that the poor boy was
little less than an idiot. And yet, as he looked upon the slave, and
saw the tear glistening in her eye, there seemed to be a flash of
intelligence cross his features, as though there was still a spark
of heaven in the boy. But 'twas gone again, and seeming to forget
the object that had led him to her side, he sank down upon the
cushioned floor, and played with a golden tassel as an infant would
char have done.

The idiot was an exemplification of a strange but universal
superstition among the Turks. With these eastern people there is a
traditionary belief in what is called the evil eye, answering to the
evil spirit that is accredited to exist by more civilized nations.
Any human being bereft of reason, or seriously deformed in any way,
is held by them to be a protection against the blight of the evil
eye, which, being once cast upon a person, renders him doomed
forever. Holding, therefore, that dwarfs, idiots or mad-men are
partially inspired, every considerable such establishment supports
one or more, whose privilege it is to follow, untrammeled, their own
pleasure. The idiot boy, in the Sultan's palace, was one of this
class, whom no one thwarted, and who was regarded with a half
superstitious reverence by all.

While this scene had been transpiring between the idiot boy and the
slave, the Sultan had been talking with Mustapha concerning the
latter. It seemed by his story that she had been very ill since she
was brought from her native valley, and that she was hardly yet
recovered from the debility that had followed her sickness. She
would not write nor read one word of either the Turkish or
Circassian tongue, and therefore could only express herself by signs;
for which reason, neither those who sold her nor the purchaser
knew aught of her history beyond the fact that she was a Circassian,
and also that she seemed to be less happy than those of her
countrywomen generally who come to Constantinople. This might be
owing to the affliction under which she labored as to being dumb,
but it was evident that Sultan Mahomet thought otherwise as he gazed
silently at her.

"She came not of her own free will from her native vales, Mustapha,"
said his master.

"No one knows, excellency, though her people generally come most
cheerfully to our harems."

"There is no means of understanding her save by signs?" asked the
Sultan.

"None, excellency."

"Take her to the harem, Mustapha," said his master, after a few
moments of thoughtful silence, "take her to the harem, and give
strict charge that she be well cared for."

"Excellency, yes," said the old Turk, with a profound reverence
after the manner of the East, "your wish is your slave's law," he
continued, as he turned away.

"And look you, good Mustapha," said the Sultan, recalling him once
more, "say it is our will that she be made as happy as may be."

"Excellency, yes," again repeated the old man with a salaam, and
then turning to the Circassian, he signed to her to follow him.

As the slave retired she could not but look back at the Sultan, who
had greeted her with such kind consideration, and as she did so she
met his dark, piercing eye bent upon her in gentle pity. She almost
sighed to leave the presence of one who had showed her the first
kindness, the first token of thoughtful consideration for her
situation since she left her own home, far away beyond the sea. But
Mustapha beckoned her forward, and she hastened to obey his summons,
wondering as she went what was to be her fate; whether that was to
be her future home, and what position she was to hold there. Musing
thus, she followed the Turk towards the sacred precincts of the
harem.

The monarch left alone, save the thoughtless boy, who lay upon the
rich divan, coiled up like an animal gone to sleep, seemed to be
troubled in his mind. Stern and imperious by nature, it was not
usual for him to evince such feeling as had exercised him towards
the dumb slave, and it was plain that his heart was moved by
feelings that were novel there. Touching a silver gong that hung
pendent from the wall, just within reach of his arm, a Nubian slave
opened the hangings of the apartment, and appeared as though he had
come out of the wall.

The slave knew well his master's summons, and preparing for him the
bowl of his pipe, and lighting it, coiled the silken tube to his
hand, and on his knee presented the amber mouthpiece.

Thus occupied, the Sultan was soon lost in the dreamy narcotic of
the tobacco.






CHAPTER II.

THE SULTAN'S HAREM.





The harem into which the dumb Circassian girl was conducted by the
woman to whom the old Turk delivered his message, was a place of
such luxuriant splendor as to puzzle her, and she stood like one
amazed for some moments.--The costly and grateful lounges, the heavy
and downy carpets, the rich velvet and silken hangings about the
walls, the picturesque and lovely groups of female slaves that
laughed and toyed with each other, mingling in pleasant games, the
rich though scanty dress of these favorites of the Sultan, all were
confusing and dazzling to her untutored eye, and when, after a few
moments' minutes, a dozen of these lovely girls crowded about her
with curious eyes to know who was the new comer that was to be their
companion, the poor girl shrunk back half abashed, for she could not
speak to them.

They too were puzzled that she made no reply to them, and stood
there in wonder.

It was only for a moment, however, when the beautiful stranger
pointed to her mouth and ears significantly, and gently shook her
head with a sadness of expression that was electrical, for each one
instantly understood her meaning, and pitied her. Some little
feeling of envy might have been ready to burst forth in the breasts
of those about her, but gentle pity loves to linger by beauty's
side, and so they all loved and condoled with the fair stranger. One
took her hand and led her to a cushion in the centre of the little
circle that had just been formed, another unloosed the wealth of
beautiful hair that astonished them by its dark richness and
profusion as it fell about her fair neck. She who had unloosed the
new comer's hair, now fell to braiding it in solid masses and
plaiting it about her head.

A second one taking a rare bracelet of pearls off her own fair arms,
placed it upon the Circassian's, and sealed it there with a
kiss!--Another removed the leather shoes she wore, and replaced them
with satin ones of curious workmanship and richly wrought with
thread of gold, and still another loosened the coarse mantle that
enshrouded her shoulders, and covered her with a shawl that had come
across the desert from the far east, rich in texture and beautiful
as costly. And as another tossed a handful of fresh flowers into her
lap, the poor girl's cheeks became wet with tears, for their
unselfish kindness and generous tenderness had touched heart.

But these tokens were quickly brushed away and kisses took their
place, while fair and delicate hands were busy upon her, until the
poor slave who had so lately stood exposed in the open bazaar of the
capital, now saw among this family of the Turkish monarch, literally
as a star of the harem. In beauty, she did indeed outshine them all,
but they forgot this in the memory of her misfortune, and envied not
the dumb slave. They touched her fingers with henna dye, and
anointed her with rare and costly perfumes, seeming to vie with each
other in their interesting efforts to deck and beautify one who had
only the voluptuous softness of her dark eyes to thank them with,
for those lovely lips, of such tempting freshness in their coral
hue, could utter no sound.

They brought to her all their jewels and rich ornaments to amuse
her, and each one contributed to give her from out their store some
becoming ornament, now a diamond broach, and now a ruby ring, next a
necklace of emeralds, interspersed with glowing opals, a fourth
added a girdle of golden chain braced at every link by close and
richly cut garnets, and other rings of sapphire and amethysts, until
the lovely stranger was dazzling with the combined brilliancy and
reflection of so many rare and beautiful jewels about her person.

It was not the jewels that so gratified the young Circassian, but
the good will they represented. She cared little for them
intrinsically, beautiful and rich as they were, but she grew very
fast to love the donors.

Days passed on in this manner, and the Sultan was no less surprised
than delighted to witness this voluntary kindness and affection that
was so freely rendered to the lovely girl. Her affliction seemed to
render her sacred in his eyes, and there was no kindness on his part
that was forgotten. Her manners and intelligent bearing showed her
to belong to the better class of her own nation, and her gentle
dignity commanded respect as well as love. She had already come to a
degree of understanding with those about her that was sufficient as
it regarded her ordinary wishes and wants, but of the past or future
she had not means to communicate, her tongue was sealed, and for
this reason her history must remain a hidden mystery to those about
her whom she loved, and would gladly have confided in.

One occupation seemed to delight her above all else, it was so
simple and beautiful, besides which it enabled her to convey her
feelings by means of an agency that, as far as it went, supplied to
her the loss of her speech. It was the arranging of flowers so as to
make them speak the language of her heart to another, a means of
communication in which the women of the East excel. Indeed it is the
only mode in which they can hold silent converse, since they know
not the cunning of the pen. Engaged in this gentle and pleasing
occupation, the Circassian passed hours and days in the study and
practice of the sweet language of flowers.

For hours together, while she was thus occupied, the idiot boy would
sit and watch her movements, and now and then receive some kindly
token of consideration from her hand that seemed to delight him
beyond measure. He followed her every movement with his eye, and
seemed only content when close by her side, sitting near her,
patient and silent; in fact he could utter but few audible sounds,
and no one had ever taught the poor idiot how to talk.

One afternoon, in the gardens that opened from the harem, the
Circassian had been engaged thus, sitting beneath the projecting
roof of a lattice-work summer house. The sun as it crept down
towards the western horizon threw lengthened shadows across the soft
green sward where minaret, cypress, or projecting angle of the
palace intervened. The boy would pick out one of those dark shadows,
and sitting down where it terminated, seem to think that he could
keep it there, but when the shadow lengthened every moment more and
more, and seemed to his untutored and simple comprehension to creep
out from under him, he would look amazed to see how it was done
while he sat upon it.

In following up a projecting shadow thus, he had come at last almost
to the very side of the dumb slave just as a gaudy winged parrot lit
upon the eve of the summer house on a large piece of the picket work
that had been used as an ornament for its top, but which having been
broken from its position, had slid down to the very eaves and now
hung but half suspended upon the roof. Even the lighting of the
parrot upon its edge was sufficient to balance it from the fragile
support that retained it on the roof, and then it slid off
immediately above the head of the Circassian girl.

The boy was on his feet as quick as thought itself, and springing to
the spot, with both hands outspread above her head, he canted the
heavy frame work away from her so that it came upon the ground,
sinking deep into the earth from its sharp points and considerable
weight. Had the falling mass come upon her head, as it would most
inevitably have done but for the boy, its effect must have been
instantly fatal. The Circassian saw the imminent service the boy had
rendered her, but he was sitting on the end of another shadow in a
moment after!

Was it reason or instinct that had caused him to make that
successful effort with such wonderful speed and accuracy? The slave
looked at him in wonder. It was very evident that he had already
forgotten the service which he had rendered, and the same listless,
childlike, and almost idiotic expression was in his face. this event
endeared the boy very much to the Circassian, and she never failed
to show him every kindness in her power. She would arrange his
straggling dress, and part his hair, smoothly away from his handsome
forehead, and give him always of each delicacy provided for herself,
until the boy seemed to feel himself almost solely dependent upon
her, and to seek her side as a faithful hound might have done.

Thus had time passed with the dumb slave in the Sultan's palace on
the Barbyses.

At times she would stroll among the rare beds of plants, and culling
fresh chaplets for her head, wreathe herself a fragrant garland,
ever finding some familiar scent that recalled her far off home in
all its freshness. Wearied of this she wandered among the jasper
fountains, and watched the play of those waters, the soft and
rippling music of which she might not hear, or still further on in
the many labyrinths of the garden and harem walks, would throw
herself upon some rich cushions beside a silver urn, where burnt
sweet aloes and sandal wood and rods of spice to perfume the air. At
early morn she loved to pet the blue pigeons that had been brought
from far off Mecca, held so sacred by the faithful, to feed them
from her own hands, and to toy with the golden thrushes from
Hindostan, and the gaudy birds of Paradise that flew about with
other rare and beautiful songsters in this fairy palace of the
Sultan.

Her companions watching her with loving eyes, never faltered in
their kindness and love for her. Indeed it seemed as though they
could not avoid tendering her this affection, she was so very
beautiful and gentle in all things. They had named her Lalla, or the
tulip, because of her love for that beautiful and delicate flower.

The Sultan looked upon the young Circassian--she had numbered hardly
seventeen summers--more in the light of a daughter than a slave, and
she who could have feared him else, even looked with pleasure for
his coming, and sought in a thousand earnest but silent ways to
please him. There was no spirit of sycophancy in this, no coquetry,
or false pretense; she was all simpleness and truth, and her conduct
towards her master sprang alone from a sense of gratitude. Thus too
did the monarch translate her behaviour to him, for he was well
versed in human nature, young as he was, and could appreciate the
promptings of a young and trusting spirit, such as she exhibited in
all her intercourse with him.

As exhibited in our illustration, the Sultan would often seek her
side in the harem, his tall, manly form contrasting strongly with
her gentle and delicate proportions, and he would regard her thus
with tender solicitude, too fully realizing her misfortune not to
pity and respect her, and he felt too that these frequent meetings
were binding his heart in a tender bondage to her. Sultan Mahomet
was a fine specimen of a Turk; in features he was markedly handsome,
and his long, flowing beard gave to him the appearance of more age
than was rightfully his. His physical developments were manly, and
to look upon he was "every inch a king." Lalla was no less beautiful
as a female; indeed she was far handsomer as it related to such a
comparison, and those who saw them so often together in the harem
could not but think what a noble pair they were, and seemingly
worthy of each other.

She possessed all that soft delicacy of appearance that reminds the
sterner sex how frail and dependent is woman, while she bore in her
face that sweet and winning expression of intellect, that, in other
climes more favored by civilization, and where cultivation adds so
much to the charms of her sex, would alone have marked her as
beautiful. Her eyes, which were surpassing in their dreamy
loveliness, were enhanced in beauty by a languid plaintiveness that
a realizing sense of her misfortunes had imparted to the expression
of her face, while her whole manner bore that subdued and quiet air
that sorrow ever imparts. Those of her companions who knew her best,
could easily understand that her heart was far away from her present
home; for her actions spoke this as plainly as might have ever been
done by words, and poor Lalla, wherever she had come from, and under
whatever circumstances, had evidently left her heart behind her
among her childhood's scenes.

The Sultan was earnestly interested in his dumb but beautiful slave,
and instituted a series of inquiries as to her history. His agents
were instructed to find out, if possible, the mode in which she had
been brought hither, and also to learn, if possible, the manner and
cause of her leaving her native hills in the Caucasus; for of these
things the fair girl had no means of communicating. The monarch and
all Constantinople knew that her people generally looked forward
with joy to the time when they should be old enough to be taken to
the Turkish capital, and seek their fortunes there, and the fact of
this being so different apparently with Lalla, created the more
curiosity to ferret out her story.

But all their efforts were useless in the pursuit of this purpose.
Since the Sultan's object in the inquiry was announced, much time
had transpired; but had his proclamation met the eye or ear of those
who transported the fair Circassian hither, they would hardly have
responded to it, as it might, for aught they knew, cost them their
heads. And thus the gentle slave lived on, a mystery to those about
her which even she was unable to solve.

"You made all inquiries at the bazaar, good Mustapha?" asked the
Sultan.

"Most rigid inquiries, excellency."

"And could learn nothing of the history of this beautiful slave?"
continued the Sultan.

"Nothing, excellency."

"It is very strange that no one can be found who knows aught about
her. Did you trace her back to those who sold her to the salesman of
the bazaar?"

"Yes, excellency, and two sales beyond that; but it seemed that
although so beautiful, the fact of her being dumb had caused her to
be very much undervalued, and she had passed through the hands of a
number of irresponsible slave merchants, who took but little heed of
her before she came to the bazaar."

"Doubtless, then, we may hardly expect to hear more concerning her."

"The reward you offered was munificent, excellency, but has brought
no response."

"You have not yet purchased for me those Georgians, good Mustapha,"
continued the monarch, after a few moments' pause, and probably
desiring to change a subject in which he felt that he was only too
much interested.

"Excellency, they are held at so high a price that I have refused to
pay it."

"Well, well, be discreet, and purchase shrewdly," said the Sultan,
resuming his pipe.

And in this manner the Sultan forgot his lovely slave, and removing
the mouth-piece of his pipe now and then, continued to question his
slave touching the matters that seemed to pertain to his department
of the household.

Poor Lalla! she had only her own unhappiness to brood upon as she
sat by some rippling fountain and watched its silvery jets and
sparkling drops, at times forgetting for a moment her sadness of
heart in the beauty that completely surrounded her; and then again,
perhaps mingling her tears with the fragrant blossoms that strewed
her lap and filled her hands. Alas! poor child! how it would have
eased the quick beating of thy heart if thou couldst have told the
story of thy unhappiness to some other confiding spirit.

The idiot boy would watch these tears, and at times he would wear a
fixed, vacant stare, as though he took no note of their meaning; and
at others, he would seem to comprehend their sorrowful import. When
this was the case, he would creep close to her side and lay his head
by her feet, and closing his eyes, remain as motionless as death.
This would at length arouse her from her unhappy mood, and she would
turn and gently caress the poor boy. Once when she had done this,
she saw a large tear drop steal out from beneath his closed eyelids,
and fall across his check. She rejoiced at this, for, while all
others set him down as without feeling, she saw that kindness at
least would awaken his heart.

Lalla had been weeping, and now sat alone by a bed of fragrant
flowers, when one of those fairy-like children of the harem,
scarcely older than herself, came tripping with light and
thoughtless steps towards her, and detecting her saddened mood,
kissed way the tears that still lingered upon her cheeks, and
binding a wreath of fresh and beautiful flowers about her head, lay
down in Lalla's lap and toyed with the stray buds, looking up into
her eyes with gentle love and tenderness.

How grateful were these delicate and beautiful manifestations of
feeling to the lonely-hearted slave.






CHAPTER III.

THE BEDOUIN ARABS.





It was one of those soft days, made up of nature's sweetest smiles,
of sunshine and gentle zephyrs, when sky, and sea, and shore were
radiant, and all the earth seemed glad, that a lone horseman sat
with the reins cast loosely upon the arching neck of his proud
Arabian, on the plain beyond the Armenian cemetery, in the suburbs
of Constantinople. The rider was dressed in the plainest attire of a
quiet citizen, though the material of his clothes and the few
ornaments that were visible about his person indicated their owner
to be one who was no meagre possessor of the riches of this world.
Both rider and horse were as still as though they had been carved in
marble instead of being living objects, save the quick, nervous
motion, now and then, of the full-blooded animal's ears, as some
distant sound rose over the Turkish city.

The Mussulman, as he sat there in a thoughtful and silent mood,
stroked slowly the jetty black beard that swept his breast, while he
seemed completely absorbed in contemplating the scene before him. He
had galloped at once from paved streets to the unfenced and
uncultivated desert that stretches away from the seven hills of
Stamboul to the very horizon. No wonder he paused there to gaze upon
the beauties that the eye might take in at a single glance.

Before him lay the city in all its oriental beauty, while, on every
sloping hillside about it, in every rural nook stood a dark
nekropolis, or city of the dead, shadowed by the close growing
cypresses, beneath whose shadows turbaned heads alone are permitted
to rest. From out of these, stretching its slender point away
towards the blue heavens, rose the fairy-like minaret, as if
pointing whither had gone the spirits of the faithful.

There, too, lay the incomparable Bosphorus, stretching away towards
the sea, and the beautiful isles in the sweet waters of Marmora,
with countless boats swarming in the Golden Horn, and then the eye
would turn back again to the city with its thousand minarets. There
lay, too, the velvet-carpeted Valley of Sweet Waters, where was the
Sultan's serai, looking like some fair scene described in the Koran,
so soft, fairy-like, and enticing.

The rider now slowly gathered up the reins from his horse's neck,
and. slightly restraining the spirited animal by a pressure of the
curb, permitted him slowly to walk on while his master appeared
still to be lost in thought. Once or twice he cast his eyes again
towards the city, and then again mused to himself, as though his
cares and thoughts lay there. So much was the rider absorbed within
himself that he did not observe two power Bedouin Arabs of the
desert, who had wandered to the outskirts of the city, and whose
longing eyes were bent, not on him, but upon the horse which he
rode. To the skillful eyes of these children of the desert he was
almost invaluable; every step betrayed his metal, while the clean
limb, nervous action, and distended nostrils told of the fleetness
that was in him!

You may trust an Arab often with gold or precious goods; the very
fact of the confidence, you accord to him makes him faithful. You
may trust your life in his hands, and the laws of hospitality shall
protect you; but trust him not with a fine horse--that will betray
him, though nothing else might do so. Born in the desert where they
are reared and loved so well, he imbibes from childhood a regard for
the full blooded barb, that falls little short of reverence; and
being once possessed of one, no money can part them. The two
Bedouins stealthily watched the Turk as he rode slowly along, and
were evidently only awaiting a favorable moment to attack and
overcome him.

By an ingenious movement they doubled a slight hillock that lay
between them and the woods of Belgrade, and as they came up on the
other side, placed themselves directly in the path of the horseman.
Still they were unobserved by him, and not until one had laid his
hand upon the bridle, and the other violent hands upon his garments,
did he arouse from the dreamy thoughts which had so completely
absorbed him. Thus taken at disadvantage, the horseman was forced
from the saddle before he could offer any resistance, but having
once reached the ground, and being fairly on his feet, his bright
blade glistened in the sun and flashed before the eyes of the Arab
robbers.

"Yield us the horse and go thy way!" said one of the assailants,
soothingly.

"By the Prophet, never!" shouted the Turk, setting upon them
fiercely as he spoke and wounding one severely at the very outset,
while he held the bridle of the horse.

The horseman was one used to the weapon he wielded, and the Arabs
saw that they had no easy enemy to conquer. He who held the horse
was forced to unloose the bridle to defend himself, while the other
was now striving to use the gun that was strapped to his back; but
they were at too close quarters for the employing of such a weapon,
and the stout, iron-like frames of the Arabs were fast conquering
the skill and endurance of the Turk. But that bright sword was not
wielded so skillfully for naught, and one of the robbers was already
glad to creep from without its reach, just as his companion
succeeded in breaking the finely-tempered blade with his gun barrel,
leaving the Turk comparatively at his mercy; and again he bade him
surrender the horse, the animal trained to the nicest point of
perfection, still remaining quiet close to the spot where the
encounter had taken place. The clashing of the weapons had startled
him, and he breathed quick, and his ears showed that the nervous
energy of his frame was aroused, but a spear point thrust into his
very flanks would not have started him away until his master bade
him to go.

"Yield thou now, or die!" shouted the excited Bedouin, drawing his
long dagger.

"By the Prophet, never!" again exclaimed the Turk, with vehemence,
though he panted sorely from the extraordinary exertion he had made
to defend himself from the attack of his two assailants.

All this had transpired in far less time than we have occupied in
the relation, and once more now having him greatly at disadvantage,
the Bedouins rushed upon him.

But there came now upon the scene a third party, at this excited
moment, from out the forest of Belgrade. He seemed but a weary
traveller, though when his eyes rested upon the scene we have
described, an instantaneous change came over him, and he appeared at
once to comprehend the meaning of the whole affair. Just at the very
moment when the Arab, who had been partially vanquished and somewhat
severely wounded, regained his feet, and was coming once more to the
contest, the traveller, espousing the side of the weaker party, who
was now indeed unarmed, fiercely attacked the robbers with a heavy
staff that he carried, and in a moment, being comparatively fresh,
and aided by the surprise as well as the lusty blows that he dealt
about him, he caused the two Bedouins to retreat precipitately,
though they made a last and nearly successful effort to carry off
the horse, but this the ready arm of the traveller prevented.

A moment sufficed to put both the Turk and his deliverer in breath
once more.

"Who art thou that hast been so opportunely sent to rescue me?"
asked the Turk, at he called his horse by his name, and the
beautiful animal came quietly to his side.

"A poor traveller, well nigh wearied by the long way," answered the
other.

"Thy habiliments bespeak thee as coming from the North, and they
look as though want had been thy companion on the way," continued he
whom the traveller had rescued.

"It has, indeed," said the other; "fatigue and want have kept me
company these many long days." As he answered thus, he wiped the
perspiration that his late exertion had caused, from his brow.

"I owe you my hearty thanks for this timely service," said the Turk.

"A trifling deed that any man in my place would have performed."

"Take this," replied the Turk, depositing a purse, heavy with gold,
in the stranger's hands. "Use the contents as you will, and when you
have need of further assistance, if there be aught that one
possessing some influence can serve thee in, present that purse at
the gates of the seraglio gardens, and you will find me."

"Thanks! a thousand thanks!" said the stranger, "though I must look
upon this as a gift, a charity, not in the light of a payment. The
service I have rendered might have been afforded by the meanest
slave."

"I know well how to esteem a favor, and how to pay it," answered the
Turk, as he mounted his spirited horse and turned his head towards
the entrance of the city of Constantine. He rode with a free rein
now, and the horse dashed over the level plain like an antelope,
while his rider sat in the saddle like a Marmaluke.

The traveller poured out a quantity of the gold from the purse to
assure himself of its value, and weighing the whole together, said
to himself, "A few moments since and I was a beggar, now I am rich;
after starving for many long weeks, fortune fills my hand with gold,
as if to show me the contrast. It was a piece of singular good luck
for me to meet with that rich old Turk; those fellows from the
desert were giving him sharp practice; it was only the barb that
they wanted. What a cunning eye those rascals have for horseflesh!"
Talking thus to himself, he placed the gold in a secure part of his
dress, though he need hardly have feared that any one would suspect
him of possessing so much of value.

The traveller turned once more to look after the Turk, but he was
already far away, though he could still make out his bearing and
stately carriage as he disappeared. Picking up the staff that had
just served him to such good purpose, he followed in the same path,
which would lead him to Constantinople, ere the sun should set in
the west.

As he drew nearer to the city he too paused to drink in of the
beauties of that twilight hour. The scene was new to him, and his
eye was filled with delight and surprise as it roamed over that
oriental sunset view. As he came down the side of the gently sloping
hill beyond Pera, he paused for a moment in the cemetery there, and
among the deep shadows of the heavy funereal cypresses and the tall,
white gravestones that thickly overspread the ground, he felt a
chill of loneliness that made him to hasten on to a spot where he
could catch the last lingering rays of the setting sun kissing the
waves of the Bosphorus.

He hurried on now into the city proper, though seemingly without any
fixed purpose, and strolled carelessly along, gazing with interest
upon all that met his curious eye; now pausing before some rich
Persian fountain half as large as a church, covered with curious
inscriptions and ornaments of gold; now regarding some sequestered
mosque almost hidden in cypresses; and now watching a cluster of
indolent-looking, large-trowsered, and moustached, but often
handsome men.

Here he was jostled by a bevy of females, shuffling along in their
yellow slippers, their faces shrouded to the eyes in that
never-forgotten covering with the Turkish wives, the yashmach; now
crowded one side by an armed kervos who is clearing the way for some
dignitary to follow; and now forced here and there by, Jew, Turk or
Armenian. But still, while he regarded intently this busy scene, he
yielded the way to all, for he was wearied and his spirits were
evidently depressed both by physical and mental suffering.

The traveller was started from his reverie by the attack upon him of
some hundred dogs, who saluted his ears with such a volley of howls
as nearly to stun him. These natural scavengers are protected by the
laws here, and whenever a stranger is seen, one whose dress or
manner betrays him as such, they set upon him like mad, but the
staff that had stood him in such good service not long before, soon
dispersed his canine tormentors, though he showed that even this
little circumstance annoyed him seriously; it was a sad welcome to a
stranger.

Perhaps there is no feeling more desolate and forsaken in its
promptings than that realized by one who finds himself alone in a
crowd. His inward solitude is more acutely realized by the contrast
he sees about him, and he feels how much he is alone. Thus it was
with the young traveller who had made his way into the city as we
have described; he was indeed solitary though surrounded by hosts,
for he was a stranger and knew no one in the Sultan's beautiful
capital.

Still he wandered on amid the crowd until at last he found himself
in the drug bazaar, where a scene so peculiarly oriental and rich
met his observation as to make him forget for a while his own sad
and weary mood. Strange and antique jars of every shape crowded the
shelves of the various stalls, their edges turned over with
brilliant colored paper, each drug bearing its own appropriate one.
The shelves were bending under the weight of rich gums, spices,
incense-wood, medicinal roots, and cunning dyes. The sedate Turk
who presides over each stall at this hour, sits with his legs
crossed and his eyes rolling in a sort of dreamy languor from the
powerful narcotic of his opium-drugged pipe. He is happy and
thoughtless in the dissipation that sooner or later hurries him to
the grave.

It was the corflew hour, and from out the lofty spires of the
neighboring mosques there came a voice that called to prayer. Each
Mussulman prostrated himself, no matter in what occupation he was
engaged, and bowing his head towards Mecca, the tomb of the Prophet,
performing his silent devotion. In famine, in pestilence, or in
plenty, five times a day the Turk finds time for this solemn
religious duty; whether right or wrong in creed, what a lesson it is
to the Christian. And so thought the lonely traveller, for he bent
his own head upon his breast in respectful awe at the exhibition he
beheld.

Pausing in silence until the scene had changed from the solemn act
of prayer to that of busy life, he passed out of the dim-lighted
bazaar once more into the open street. Night was fast creeping over
the city, and he remembered how much he required rest and
refreshment, and availing himself of the proffered services of a
Jewish interpreter, he told his wants, and not long after found
himself seated in one of the little Armenian houses of resort in the
outskirts of Stamboul.

Here again he found enough of character to study in the singular and
medley company that resorted thither, but wayworn and weary, after
partaking of some refreshment, he soon lost himself in sleep.

It was late on the subsequent morning when the traveller awoke,
greatly refreshed by his night's rest, and once more refreshing the
inner man with meats and such coffee as one gets only in Turkey, he
roamed again into the streets, where we must leave him to pursue his
purpose, be it what it might, while we turn to other scenes in our
story, taking the reader across the sea, to another, hut no loss
interesting land.






CHAPTER IV.

VALES OF CIRCASSIA.





Circassia, the land of beauty and oppression, whose noble valleys
produce such miracles of female loveliness, and whose level plains
are the vivid scenes of such terrible struggles; where a brave,
unconquerable peasantry have, for a very long period, defied the
combined powers of the whole of Russia, and whose daughters, though
the children of such brave sires, are yet taught and reared from
childhood to look forward to a life of slavery in a Turkish harem as
the height of their ambition--Circassia, the land of bravery, beauty
and romance, is one of the least known, but most interesting spots
in all Europe.

Whether it be that the genial air of its hills and vales possesses
power to beautify the forms and faces of its daughters, or that they
inherit those charms from their ancestors by right of blood, we may
not say; but from the farthest dates, it has ever supplied the
Sultan and his people with the lovely beings who have rendered of
the harems of the Mussulmen so celebrated for the charms they
enshrine. Its daughters have been n the mothers of the highest
dignitaries of the courts, and Sultan Mahomet himself was born of a
Circassian mother.

Unendowed with mental culture, Providence has seemed, in a degree,
to compensate to the girls of Circassia for want of intellectual
brilliancy, by rendering them physically beautiful almost beyond
description. No wonder, then, educated, or rather uneducated as they
are, that the visions of their childhood, the dreams of their
girlish days, and even the aspirations of their riper years, should
be in the anticipation of a life of independence, luxury and love,
in those fairy-like homes that skirt the Bosphorus at
Constantinople.

Being from their earliest childhood taught by their parents to look
upon this destiny as an enviable one, these fair girls do not fail
to appreciate and fully realize the captivating charms that Heaven
has so liberally endowed them with, and wait with trembling breasts
and hopeful hearts for the period when they shall change the humble
scenes of their existence, from the long and rugged ravines of the
Caucasus, for the glittering and gaudy palaces of the Mussulmen, in
the Valley of Sweet Waters, or on the banks of the Golden Horn.

In former years, the Trebizond merchantman took on board his cargo
of young and lovely Circassians, and navigated the Black Sea with a
flowing sheet and a flag flying at his peak, which told his business
and the commerce that he was engaged in; now the trade is
contraband, and the slave ship has to pick its way cautiously about
the island of Crimea, and keep a sharp lookout to avoid the Russian
war steamers that skirt the entire coast, and keep up a
never-ceasing blockade from the Georgian shore to the ancient port
of Anapa.

This latter place was, for centuries, one of vital importance to the
Circassians, being their general depot or rendezvous for the trade
between themselves and the ports that lay at the other extreme of
the Black Sea. It was the point where they were always sure to find
a ready market for their females, receiving as payment in exchange
from the Turks, fire-arms, ammunition and gold. But at last the
Russians, assuming a virtue that did not actuate them, stormed and
took the fort, ostensibly to put a stop to this trade, as opposed to
the principles it involved, but in reality to stop the supplies that
enabled the brave mountaineers to oppose them so successfully.

In the country lying immediately back of Anapa, there is a
succession of hills and vales of surpassing loveliness, presenting
the extremes of wild and rugged mountain scenery, joining fertile
plains and beautiful valleys, where, among fragrant and luxuriant
groves, many a fair creature has grown up to be brought to the slave
market and sold for a price. Vales where brave and stalwart youths
have been nurtured and taught the dexterous use of arms, being ever
educated to look upon the Russians as their natural enemies, and
also to believe that any revenge exercised upon their Moscovite
neighbors was not only commendable, but holy and just.

In a valley opening towards the north, a short league above the port
of Anapa, at the time of our story there dwelt two families, named
Gymroc and Adegah. Both these families traced their ancestry back to
noble chiefs, who, in the days of Circassian glory and independence,
were at the head of large and powerful tribes of their countrymen.
These families, from the fact that they were thus descended, were
still held by the mountaineers who lived about them in reverence,
and their words had double weight in council when important subjects
were discussed; and indeed the present head of each was often chosen
to lead them on to the almost constantly recurring battles and
bloody guerilla contests that transpired between the mountaineers
and their enemies, the Russian Cossacks.

The family of Gymroc was blessed with a fair daughter, an only
child, who, though living among a people who were so universally
endowed with loveliness in their gentler sex, was famed for her
transcendent loveliness far and near, and the youths of the
neighboring valleys and plains sighed in their hearts to think that
the fairest flower in all Circassia was but blooming to shed its
ripened fragrance and loveliness in the harem of some dark and
bearded Mahometan, to be the toy of some rich and heartless Turk.

One there was among the young mountaineers, Aphiz Adegah, whose
whole life and soul seemed bound up in the lovely Komel, as she was
called. Neither was more than eighteen; indeed Komel was not so old,
for but sixteen full summers had passed over her head. They had
grown up together from very childhood, played together, worked
together, sharing each other's burthens, and mutually aiding each
other; now quietly watching the sheep and goats upon the hillsides,
and now working side by side in the fields, content and happy, so
they were always together.

Komel was almost too beautiful. With every grace and delicacy of
outline that has, for centuries, rendered her sex so famed in her
native land, she added also a sweet, natural intelligence, which,
though all uncultivated, was yet ever beaming from her eyes, and
speaking forth from her face. Her form possessed a most captivating
voluptuous fullness, without once trespassing upon the true lines of
female delicacy. Her large and lustrous eyes were brilliant yet
plaintive, her lips red and full, and the features generally of a
delicate Grecian cast. Her hair was of that dark, glossy hue, that
defies comparison, and was heavy and luxuriant in its fullness.

Some one has said that no one can write real poetry until he has
known the sting of unhappiness; and sure it is that beauty ever
lacks that moss-rose finish that tender melancholy throws about it,
until it has known what sorrow is. Komel had been called to mourn,
and melancholy had thrown about her a gentle glow of plaintiveness,
as a grateful angel added another grace to the rose that had
sheltered its slumber, by a shroud of moss.

While she was yet but a little child, her only brother, but little
older than herself, and whom she loved with all the sisterly
tenderness of her young heart, had strayed away from home to the
seaside, and been drowned. From that day she had sorrowed for his
loss, and even now as memory recalled her early playmate, the tears
would dim her eyes, nor did her spirits seem ever entirely free from
the grief that had imbued them at her brother's loss. This hue of
tender melancholy was in Komel only an additional beauty, as we have
said, and lent its witchery to her other charms.

To say that Komel was insensible to all her personal advantages
would be unreasonable, and supposing her not possessed of an
ordinary degree of perception. She knew that she was fair, nay, that
she was more beautiful than any of the youthful companions of her
native valley; but whatever others might have anticipated for her,
she had never looked forward, as nearly all of her sex do, in
Circassia, to a splendid foreign home across the Black Sea. No, no;
her young and loving heart had already made its choice of him she
had so long and tenderly loved,--him who had stepped in when there
was that vacant spot in her heart that her brother's loss had left,
and filled it; for he had been both brother and lover to her from
the tenderest years of childhood. They had probably thought little
upon the subject of their relation to each other, and had said less,
until Komel was nearly sixteen, and then it was only in that tender
and hopeful strain of a happy future, and that future to be shared
by each other.

Aphiz was as noble and generous in spirit as he was handsome in
person. Nature had cast him in a sinewy, yet graceful form; his
native mountain air and vigorous habits had ripened his physical
developments to an early manliness and already had he more than once
charged the enemy upon the open plains of his native land. His
falchion had glanced in the tide of battle, and his stout arm had
dealt many a fatal blow to the Cossack forces, that sought to
conquer and possess themselves of all Circassia. It was a stern
school for the young mountaineer, and it was well, as he grew up in
this manner, that there was always the tender and chastening
association before his mind, of his love for the gentle and
beautiful girl who had given her young heart into his keeping. He
needed such promptings to enable him to combat the rough
associations of the camp, and the hardening duty of a soldier in
time of war.

It was, therefore, to her side that he came for that true happiness
that emanates from the better feelings of the heart; by her side
that he enjoyed the quiet but grand scenery of their native hills
and valleys, looking, as it were, through each other's eyes at every
beauty, either of thought or that lay tangible before them.

Though both Komel and Aphiz had been thrice happy in their constant
intercourse in the days of childhood, though those day. so well
remembered, had been to them like a pleasant morning filled with
song, or the gliding on of a summer stream, and were marked only by
truthfulness and peaceful content, still both realized as they now
entered upon a riper age of youth, that they were far happier than
ever before, that they loved each other better, and all things about
them. It is an error to suppose that childhood is the happiest
period of life, though philosophers tell us so, for a child's
pleasures are like early spring flowers--pretty, but pale, and
fleeting, and scentless. The rich and fragrant treasures of the
heart are not developed so early; they come with life's summer, and
thus it was with these Circassian youths.

Growing up daily and hourly together to that period when love holds
strongest sway over the heart, both felt how happily they could
kneel before Heaven and be pronounced one and inseparable; but Aphiz
was poor and had no home to offer a bride, besides which, the
character of the times was sufficient to prevent their more prudent
parents from yielding their consent to such an arrangement as their
immediate union, though they offered no opposition to their
intimacy.

Komel was of such a happy and cheerful disposition at heart that she
scattered pleasure always about her, but Aphiz's very love rendered
him thoughtful and perhaps at times a little melancholy; for he
feared that some future chance might in an unforeseen, way rob him
of her who was so ineffably dear to him. He did not exactly fear
that Komel's parents would sell her to go to Constantinople, though
they were now, since war and pestilence had swept away lands, home
and title, poor enough; and yet there was an undefined fear ever
acting in his heart as to her he loved. Sometimes when he realized
this most keenly, he could not help whispering his forebodings to
Komel herself.

"Nay, dear Aphiz," she would say to him, with a gentle smile upon
her countenance, "let not that shadow rest upon thy brow, but rather
look with the sun on the bright side of everything. Am I not a
simple and weak girl, and yet I am cheerful and happy, while thou,
so strong, so brave and manly, art ever fearing some unknown ill."

"Only as it regards thee, Komel, do I fear anything."

"That's true, but I should inspire thee with joy, not fear and
uneasiness."

"It is only the love I bear thee, dearest, that makes me so jealous,
so anxious, so fearful lest some chance should rob me of thee
forever," he would reply tenderly.

"It is ever thus; what is there to fear, Aphiz?"

"I know not, dearest. No one feared your gentle brother's loss years
ago, and yet one day he woke happy and cheerful, and went forth to
play, but never came back again."

"You speak too truly," answered the beautiful girl with a sigh, "and
yet because harm came to him, it is no reason that it should come to
me, dear Aphiz."

"Still the fear that aught may happen to separate us is enough to
make me sad, Komel."

"Father says, that it is troubles which never happen that chiefly
make men miserable," answered the happy-spirited girl, as she laid
her head pleasantly upon Aphiz's arm.

They stood at her father's door in the closing hour of the day when
they spoke thus, and hardly had Aphiz's words died upon his lips
when the attention of both was directed towards the heavy, dark form
of a mountain-hawk, as it swept swiftly through the air, and poising
itself for an instant, marked where a gentle wood dove was perched
upon a projecting bough in the valley. Komel laid her hand with
nervous energy upon Aphiz's arm. The hawk was beyond the reach of
his rifle, and realizing this he dropped its breach once more to his
side. A moment more and the bolder bird was bearing its prey to its
mountain nest, there to feed upon it innocent body. Neither Komel
nor Aphiz uttered one word, but turned sadly away from the scene
that had seemed so applicable to the subject of their conversation.
He bade her a tender good night, but as the young mountaineer wended
his way down the valley he was sad at heart, and asked himself if
Komel might not be that dove.

So earnestly was he impressed with this idea, after the conversation
which had just occurred, that twice he turned his steps and resolved
to seek the lofty cliff where the hawk had flown, as though he could
yet release the poor dove; then remembering himself, he would once
more press the downward path to the valley.

It was not to be presumed that Komel should not have found other
admirers among the youths of her native valley. She had touched the
hearts of many, though being no coquette, they soon learned to
forget her, seeing how much her heart was already another's. This,
we say, was generally the case, but there was one exception, in the
person of a young man but little older than Aphiz, whose name was
Krometz. He had loved Komel truly, had told her so, and had been
gently refused her own affection by her; but still he persevered,
until the love he had borne her had turned to something very unlike
love, and he resolved in his heart that if she loved not him,
neither should she marry Aphiz.

At one time when Aphiz was in the heat of battle, charging upon the
Russian infantry, suddenly he staggered, reeled and fell, a bullet
had passed into his chest near the heart. His comrades raised him up
and brought him off the battle-field, and after days of painful
suffering he recovered, and was once more as well as ever, little
dreaming that the bullet which had so nearly cost him his life came
from one of his own countrymen. Could the ball have been examined,
it would have fitted exactly Krometz's rifle!

Though the rifle shot had failed, Krometz's enmity had in no way
abated; he only watched for an opportunity more successfully to
effect the object that now seemed to be the motive of his life.
Before Komel he was all gentleness, and affected the highest sense
of honor, but at heart he was all bitterness and revenge.

Another chapter will show the treacherous and deep game that the
rejected lover played.






CHAPTER V.

THE SLAVE SHIP.





It was on a fair summer's evening that a beautiful English built
craft, after having beat up the Black Sea all day against the ever
prevailing a north-cast wind, now gathered in her light sails and
barely kept steerageway by still spreading her jib and mainsail.
With the setting sun the breeze had lulled also to rest, and there
was but a cap full now coming from off the mountains of the
Caucasus, just enough to keep the little clipper steady in hand.

It would be difficult to define the exact class to which the rig of
this craft would make her belong, there was so much that was English
in the hull and raking step of her masts, while the rigging, and the
way in which she was managed, smacked so strongly of the
Mediterranean that her nation also might have puzzled one familiar
with such a subject. The lofty spread of canvas, the jib, flying-jib
and fore-staysail, that are rarely worn save by the larger class of
merchantmen, gave rather an odd appearance to a craft that could
count hardly more than an hundred tons measurement.

Besides her fore and mainsail, and those already named, the
schooner, for so we must call her, carried two heavy, but graceful
topsails upon her fore and mainmasts, and even a jigger sail or
spanker and gaff above it, on a slender spur rigged from the quarter
deck. Altogether the schooner with her various appurtenances,
resembled such a yacht as some of the English noblemen sail in the
channel and about the Isle of Man in the sporting season.

The schooner was not unobserved from the shore, and a careful
observer could have noticed a group of persons that were evidently
regarding her with no common interest from the landing just above
the harbor of Anapa.

"That must be the craft that has been so long expected," said one of
the group, "and we had best get our girls ready at once to put on
board before the morning."

"This comes in a bad time, for the steamer should be here before
nightfall."

"That's true; as she doesn't seem inclined to run in too close,
perhaps she knows it."

"What was the signal agreed upon?" asked the first speaker of his
companion, who was silently regarding the schooner.

"A red flag at the foretopmast head, and there it goes. Yes, it is
here sure enough."

"How like a witch she looks."

"They say she will outsail anything between here and Gibraltar, in
any wind."

"What does that mean? she's going about."

"Sure enough, and up goes her foresail, they work with a will and
are in a hurry."

"She don't like the looks of something on the coast," said the
other.

The fact was, while the schooner lay under the easy sail we have
described, just off the port of Anapa, the little Russian government
steamer that plies between Odessa and the ports along the Circassian
coast held by the emperor's troops, hove in sight, having just come
down the Sea of Azoff through the Straits of Yorkcale. Her dark line
of smoke was discovered by those on board the schooner, before she
had doubled the headland of Tatman, and it was very plain, that, let
the schooner's purpose be what it might, she desired to avoid all
unnecessary observation, and especially that of the steamer.

A single movement of the helm while the mainsail sheet was eased
away, and the schooner brought the gentle night breeze that was
still setting from the north and east off the Georgian shore, right
aft, and quietly hoisting her foresail, the two were set wing and
wing, and a sea bird could not have skimmed with a more easy and
graceful motion over the deep waters that glanced beneath her hull,
than she did now. If the steamer had desired she might have
overhauled the schooner, but it would have taken all night to do it
with that leading wind in her favor; and so, after looking towards
the clipper craft with her bows for a moment, the steamer again held
on her course.

"Too swift of wing for that smoke pipe of yours," said one of the
Circassians who had been watching the evolutions of the two crafts
from the shore.

"The steamer has put her helm down and gives it up for it bad job,"
said another, as her black bow came once more to look towards the
port of Anapa.

"She will be off before night sets in, and we shall have the
schooner back again."

This was in fact the policy of those on board the schooner; for no
sooner did she find herself unpursued than she hauled her wind,
jibed her foresail to starboard and looked down, towards the coast
of Asia Minor, until the moon crept up from behind the mountains of
the Caucasus as though it had come from a bath in the Caspian Sea
beyond, when the schooner was closer hauled on the other trick, and
bore up again for the harbor of Anapa.

We have said that the little clipper numbered some hundred tons, but
though her appearance would indicate this to be the case, yet your
thorough-bred sailor would have marked how stiffly she bore so much
top hamper, and would have judged more correctly by the depth of
water that the schooner evidently drew. It was plain that she was
deep and much heavier than she looked. A few sprightly Greek youths,
in their picturesque costume were dispersed here and there in the
waist and on the forecastle, while two or three persons wearing the
same dress and evidently of that nation, were talking together in a
group upon the weather-side of the quarter-deck.

As the hours drew towards midnight, the schooner at length opened
communication with the land by means of signal lanterns, and
immediately after boats commenced to ply between the clipper and the
shore, and continued to do so for several hours. It was plain enough
to any one who knew the usages and trade of these waters, that the
schooner was preparing to run a cargo of Circassian girls, the trade
having been, as we have already shown, made contraband by the
Russians.

At last the clipper seemed to have received all on board that she
expected in the shape of passengers, but still stood off and on for
some reason until the breaking day began to tinge the mountain tops
beyond Anapa; when a last boat with five persons, one of whom was a
female, came down to the clipper which was thrown in the wind's eye
long enough for those to get on board, or rather for three of them
to do so; and then, as the other two pulled back to the shore, the
schooner gradually came round under the force of her topsail, and
one sail after another was distended and sheeted home until she
looked to those on shore as though enveloped in canvas, and drove
over the waters like a flying cloud.

One of those who pulled away from the schooner as she lay her
course, would have been recognized by the reader as Krometz; and now
half way to the landing he motioned his companion to cease rowing,
while he paused himself and looked after the receding clipper with a
strange medley of expression pictured in his face.

"Give way, give way," said his companion at last, somewhat
impatiently; "one would think, by the way you look seaward, that you
would like to head in that direction instead of pulling into the
harbor."

"You are right, comrade. I do wish that yonder clipper was carrying
me away from here."

"You are a queer fellow, Krometz, to let that girl make you so
unhappy, but she's off now, and will probably bring up in some
Turkish harem, where she will end her days. Not so bad a fate
either," continued the oarsman. "Surrounded by every luxury the
heart could wish or the imagination conceive, it's a better lot than
either yours or mine."

"Well, say no more of this, and remember the utmost secrecy is to be
observed, for that tiger of an Aphiz will hunt us to death if he
does but suspect that we had a hand in the business."

"Our disguise was sufficient," said the other, "and by-the-way, we
may as well get rid of this black stuff now;" and as he spoke he
dashed the water from alongside upon his face and hands, and removed
a coat of black from them.

"Now give way again; let us get in, and separate before any one is
stirring abroad."

Leaving Krometz and his companion to pursue their own business, and
the clipper craft with her course laid for the Sea of Marmora, we
will, with the reader, return once more to the mountain side where
we met Komel and Aphiz.

In time of peace, or rather when there was no open outbreak between
the Circassians and the Russian forces, Aphiz Adegah passed his time
in hunting among the rugged hills and cliffs, and with the early
morn was abroad with his gun strapped to his back, and in his hand
the long iron-pointed staff that helped him to climb the otherwise
inaccessible rocks of the mountain's sides. Thus equipped, he came,
in the morning referred to above, to the cottage of Komel's parents,
but, instead of the cheerful, happy welcome that usually greeted him
on such occasions, he beheld consternation and misery written in the
father's face, while the mother wept as though her heart would
break.

"What means this strange scene?" asked the young hunter, hastily.
"Where is Komel?"

"Alas! gone, gone," sighed both.

"Gone!"

"Ay, gone forever."

"What mean you? whither has she gone? what has happened to render
you so miserable?"

Alas, Aphiz; Komel has gone to be the star of some proud Turkish
harem," said the father.

"And with your consent?"

"No! O, no!"

"Nor by her own free will, that I know," he continued, quickly.

"Alas! no; this night she was stolen from us, and we saw her borne
away before our very eyes."

"Was there no one by to strike a blow for her, no one to render you
aid?"

"Yes, one there was, an honest friend who lives in the next cottage.
He was aroused by the noise, and outraged by the violence he beheld,
he rushed upon the thieves, but they struck him bleeding and dead to
the earth. It was a terrible sight and poor Komel saw it as they
carried her away, and uttered such a fearful, piercing scream that
it seems to ring in our cars even now. She fainted then in their
arms, and we saw her no more."

"Heaven guard her!" said Aphiz, with inward anguish expressed in his
face.

"Amen!" said the aged father, with a deep, heartfelt sigh, full of
sorrow.

This told the whole story of the previous night, and the last boat
that put off from, the shore for the clipper schooner contained
Komel as a prisoner, insensible to all about, abducted by her own
countrymen, incited by the revengeful spirit of Krometz. Actuated by
the vilest motives himself, he had persuaded a companion, as we have
seen, by a small bribe and the representation that Komel would in
reality be better off than with her parents, to aid him in his
object. Krometz had not hesitated to receive the handsome sum that
one so beautiful as Komel could not fail to command.

Aphiz was almost too miserable to be able to find words to express
his feelings. A bitter tear stole down his sunburnt check as he saw
the mother's grief, but a stern flash of the eye was also visible in
the expression of his face. He sought at once the highest cliff
beyond the cottage, and in the distant, far-off horizon, could dimly
make out the white canvas of the slave cutter, no bigger than a
sea-bird, on the skirts of the horizon. He sat down in the
bitterness of his anguish, alone and heart-broken, and then he
remembered the scene of the previous evening, how they both together
had seen the hawk pounce down and carry off in its talons the poor
wood dove.

That scene, so suggestive to his mind, was not without its meaning.
It was the forerunner of the calamity under which his heart now
grieved so bitterly. Aphiz Adegah's life had been a bold one, he
knew no fear. The air of his native hills was not freer than his own
spirit and as he looked off once more at the tiny white speck in the
distance that marked the spot where Komel was, his resolution was
instantly made, and he swore to follow and rescue her.

It was but natural that the young mountaineer should desire to find
out the agency by which that evil business had been consummated. He
knew very well that such a plan as Komel's abduction could not have
been perpetrated without the aid of parties that knew her and her
home, but never for one moment did he suspect Krometz. He had ever
professed the warmest friendship for both him and Komel, and he was
deemed honest. But during the melee, when the honest mountaineer had
rushed to Komel's rescue, and had received the fatal blow, her
parents heard a voice that they recognized, and both exclaimed, "Can
that voice be Krometz's!"

This was afterwards made known to Aphiz, and with this clue, though
he could scarcely believe that there was the possibility of fact or
correctness in the surmise, he sought his pretended friend. He
charged him with the evidence and its inference, and bade him speak
and say if this was true.

"It matters not, friend Aphiz, since she is gone, how she came to
go."

"This answer," said the young mountaineer, "is but another evidence
against thee."

"Do you pretend to call me to an account, Aphiz? You are but a boy,
while I have already reached the full age of manhood. Think not,
because you were more successful with that girl, than I, that you
can lord it over me. I shall answer no further charges from you."

"Krometz, your guilt speaks out in every line of your face," said
the excited Aphiz. "Meet me at sunset behind the signal rock on the
cliff, and we will settle this affair together."

"I will neither meet thee, nor account to thee for aught I may have
done."

"The, as true as to-morrow's sun shall rise, with this good rifle I
will shoot you to the heart. I shall be there at the sunset hour;
fail me, and to-morrow you shall die."

Krometz knew well with whom he had to deal; he knew if he met Aphiz,
as he proposed, there would be a chance for his life, but if he
failed him, he feared the unerring aim of his rifle. He was no
coward--both of them had faced the enemy together, but he lacked the
moral courage that is far more sustaining than mere dogged bravery,
or contempt for immediate danger. Thus influence, at sunset he kept
the appointment.

The young mountaineer had been taught this mode of resort to arms by
the Russian and Polish officers who had been thrown much among them.
They had no seconds, but fought alone, starting back to back,
walking forward five paces, wheeling and firing together. The
position was on the brink of a precipice, and he who fell would be
hurled at once down an immense depth. Aphiz was desperate, Krometz
reckless; they fired and the body of the latter fell over the cliff.
Aphiz was unharmed.

In a moment after he realized his situation, has act, however just,
had made him a fugitive, and he must fly at once from those scenes
of his boyish love and happiness.






CHAPTER VI.

A SINGULAR MEETING.





Turning from the mountain scenes we have described, let us back once
more to Constantinople, and direct our footsteps up the fragrant
valley where the Barbyses threads its meandering course. Here let us
look once more into the gilded cage that holds the Sultan's
favorites, where art had exhausted itself to form a fairy-like spot,
as beautiful as the imagination could conceive. We find here, once
more, amid the fragrant atmosphere and the playing fountains, the
form of Lalla, and by her side again that form, before which all the
tribes of the faithful kneel in humble submission. It was strange
what a potent charm the dumb but beautiful Circassian had thrown
about herself. It seemed as though some fairy circle enshrined her,
within which no harm might possibly reach the gentle slave.

An observant person could have noticed also a third party in that
presence, though he was some distance from Lalla's side, lying upon
the ground, so near the jet of a fountain, that the spray dampened
his face. It was the idiot. To the monarch, or his slave, he
appeared unconscious of aught save the play of water; but one nearer
to him would have seen that no movement of either escaped the now
watchful eye of the boy. Was it possible that he possessed a degree
of reason, after all, and more than half assumed the strange guise
that seemed to enshroud his wits.

Now he tossed the pure white pebble stones into the playing waters,
and saw them carried up by the force of the jets, and now half
rising to his elbow, startled the gold and silver fish in the basin
by a tiny shower of gravel, but still with a strange tenacity, ever
watching both the Sultan and his slave, though not appearing to do
so.

A change had come over that proud, eastern prince. He had been
awakened to fresh impulses, and a new and joyful sense of
realization; the sentiments that actuated him were novel, indeed, to
his breast. From childhood he had been taught by every association
to look upon the gentler sex as toys, merely, of his own; but here
was one, yes, and the first one, too, who had caused him to realize
that she had a soul, a heart, a brilliant, natural intelligence of
mind, that surprised and delighted him. Besides this, the fact of
her sad physical misfortune had, no doubt, increased his tender and
respectful solicitude, and thus altogether he was most peculiarly
situated, as it regarded his dumb slave.

The stern warrior, the relentless foe, the severe judge, and the
pampered monarch, all were merged in the man, when by her side--and
Sultan Mahomet, for the first time in his life, felt that he loved!

As we have shown, it was not the headstrong promptings of passion
that actuated him--far from it; for had the monarch been heedless of
her love and respect in return, how easily might he have commanded
any submission, on her part, that he could wish. The truth was, he
feared to risk the love he now felt that he coveted so strongly, by
any overt act, and thus day by day her life stole quietly on, and
lie was still ever tender and respectful, ever thoughtful for her
comfort or pleasure, and ever assiduous to make her feel contented
and happy with her lot.

It would have been most unnatural had not Lalla experienced, in
return for all this kindness, the warmest sentiments of gratitude,
and this she showed in the expression of her dark, dreamy eyes, at
all times; and to speak truly, the Sultan felt himself amply repaid
by her gentle gratitude and tender smiles.

In the mean time, as days and weeks passed on, silently registering
the course of life, the chill of homesickness, which had been so
keen and saddening at first, wore gradually away from the radiant
face of the slave, though she thought no less earnestly and dearly
of her friends and her home, far away in the Circassian hills; yet
absence and time had robbed her grief of its keenness, while the
easy and luxuriant mode of living that she enjoyed had again
restored the roundness of her beautiful form, had once more imparted
the rose to her check, and the elasticity of her childhood's day to
her movements. In short, she who was so lovely when she entered the
harem, had now grown so much more so, that the companions who
surrounded her, with sentiments almost akin to awe, declared her too
beautiful to live, and sagely hinting that ere long she would hear
the songs of those spirits who chant around Allah's throne.

All this had wrought a corresponding change in the heart of the
Sultan; indeed his affection and, interest for Lalla had even more
than kept pace with this improvement in her appearance; and now it
was for the first time since she came there, that those scarcely
less beautiful Georgians, the petted favorites, heretofore, of the
monarch, now evinced feelings of envy that it was impossible to
disguise. They saw but too plainly that the Sultan cared only for
the dumb slave, had smiles for no one else, and that he was ever by
her side when within the precincts of the harem.

Nor is it to be wondered at that they should feel thus. In a country
where personal beauty constitutes the marketable value of a woman,
it was but natural, that they should be led to prize this endowment,
and perhaps also in the end to dislike all who should successfully
contest the palm with them in this respect. Still, so sweet was
Lalla's disposition, so yielding and considerate, that they could
not openly express the feelings that brooded in their breasts; nor
had one unkind word yet been expressed towards her, since the first
hour that she had entered the Sultan's household.

Leaving the dumb slave thus bound by silken cords, thus chained in a
gilded cage, we will once more turn to the fortunes of the lone and
weary traveller, whom we left in the Armenian quarter of the
capital.

He was evidently a wanderer, and, save the liberal means he had
received from the hands of the grateful Turk whom he had so
providentially rescued near the forest borders of Belgrade, he was
poor indeed. Yet with strict economy this purse had served him well,
and for a long while; whatever his errand in this capital might be,
he seemed to keep it sacredly to himself, and to wander day after
day, front morning until night, here, there, and everywhere, now in
the slave market, now in the opium bazaar, now among the silk
merchants, now among the splendid and picturesque dwellings along
the banks of the Bosphorus, and now in this quarter, now in that,
seemingly in search of some one he hoped to find; but as night
returned, he, too, came to his temporary home, tired, dejected and
unhappy.

But day after day and week after week had at last entirely emptied
his purse of its golden contents, and he stood now very near the
spot where we first introduced him to the reader. The purse was in
his hand, and he was consulting with himself now as to what course
he should pursue for the future, when his eyes rested once more upon
the jewelled receptacle he held in his hand. He had often marked its
richness, and the thought came across him that he might realize a
small sum by selling it at some of the fancy bazaars, and he had
even made up his mind to adopt this plan, when he suddenly
remembered, for the first time, that the Turk had told him to
present it at the gates of the seraglio gardens when he needed
further aid.

"Fool that I have been!" ejaculated the wanderer, vehemently,
"perhaps I might not only obtain the necessary pecuniary aid from
him, but also that information which I so sadly but earnestly seek.
Why should I, until this late hour, have forgotten his proffered
aid? I will away to him at once, tell him my sad history, and
beseech him to lend me the assistance I require." Thus saying, he
turned his eyes towards the little point of land that jets out
towards Asia from the Turkish city, known as Seraglio Point, a
fairy-like cluster of gardens and palaces marking the spot.

His quick, nervous step soon brought him to the gilded portal that
formed the entrance to the splendid gardens beyond, and through the
sentinel who guarded the spot he summoned an officer of the
household, to whom he showed the purse, telling him that he had
received it from the owner as a token of friendship, and that he had
bidden him, when necessity should dictate, to show it at the
seraglio gates, and he would be admitted to his presence.

"God is great!" said the officer, as he looked upon the purse with a
profound reverence, astonishing the humble wanderer by the respect
he showed to the jewelled bag.

"And what place is this?" he asked of the officer, as hie looked
curiously about him.

"By the beard of the Prophet, young man, do you not know?" asked the
official.

"I do not."

"Not know whose purse you hold, and in whose grounds you stand!"
reiterated the soldier.

"Not I."

"Allah akbar! it is the palace of the defender of the faith, Sultan
Mahomet!"

"The Sultan!" exclaimed the lone wanderer, struck dumb with
amazement.

"The Brother of the Sun," repeated the official, with a profound
salaam as he repeated the name, while at the same time he noted the
astonishment of the stranger.

"The Sultan," repeated the new comer, musing to himself, "rides he
forth alone?"

"At times, yes, when it suits him. No harm can come to him--he is
sacred, and need not fear."

"Perhaps not," answered the other, as he recalled the scene on the
borders of the forest.

At the singular piece of intelligence which the had received, the
stranger seemed to hesitate. He surely would not have come hither
had he known to whom he was about to apply for assistance. Could it
be the Sultan that he so opportunely aided? If so, he surely need
not fear to meet him again; perhaps he might even venture still to
tell him honestly his story, and ask at least for advice in the
pursuit of the object which had brought him to Constantinople. In
this half undecided mood he stood musing for some minutes, and then
with a struggle for resolution, bade the officer lead him to his
master.

Let us look in upon the royal presence for a moment. It is a
gorgeous saloon, where the monarch lounges upon satin cushions, with
the rich amber mouthpiece of his pipe between his lips, and the
perfumed tobacco gently wreathing in blue smoke above his head.
Mahomet was at this moment seated on a pedestal of cushions, so rich
and soft that he seemed almost, lost in their luxuriance. Reclining
by his side was a creature so lovely in her maidenly beauty, that
pencil, not pen, should describe her. Ever and anon the monarch cast
glances of such tenderness towards her that an unprejudiced observer
would have noticed at once the warmth of his feelings towards her,
while the gentle slave, for it was Lalla, turned over a pile of rich
English engravings, pausing now and then to hold one of more than
usual interest before his eyes.

It was an interesting scene. The pictures had deeply interested the
slave, and with graceful abandon she had forgotten everything but
them; now smiling over some curious representation, or sighing over
another no less truthful, and her fair, young face expressing the
feelings that actuated her bosom with telltale accuracy all the
while. Her dark hair was interwoven with pearls by the running hands
of the Nubian slaves, and its long plaits reached nearly to her
feet, while across her fair brow there hung a cluster of diamonds
which might have ransomed an emperor--a gift from the Sultan himself.

The Sultan seemed, of late, scarcely contented to have her from his
side for a single hour, and even received his officials and gave
audience, with her in the presence oftentimes, first motioning her,
on such occasions, to cover her face, after the style of the Turkish
women; but even this precaution was rarely taken, for Lalla was not
used to it, and the Sultan pressed nothing upon her that he found to
be in any way disagreeable to her feelings. So when the officer
announced a stranger who had shown a purse which bore the Sultan's
arms as his talisman, he was bidden to admit him at once.

The slave turned her back by chance as the stranger entered, and
hearing not his steps she still bent absorbedly over the roll of
engravings while the new comer with profound respect told the Sultan
that until a moment since he had not known that it was his good
fortune to have served his highness, and that perhaps had he
realized this he would not then be before him.--But the monarch
generously re-assured him by his kindness, and repeated his offer of
any service in his power.

"I feel that I am already a heavy pensioner on your bounty,
excellency," he replied.

"Not so; your bravery and prompt assistance stood us in aid at an
important moment.--Speak then, and if there be aught in which we can
further your wishes or good, it will afford us pleasure."

"It is of a matter, which would hardly interest your excellency that
I would speak."

"We are the best judge of that matter."

"Shall I tell my story then, excellency?"

"Ay, speak on," said the monarch, resuming his pipe, and pouring
forth a lazy cloud of smoke from his mouth.

"Excellency," he commenced, "I am it very humble mountaineer of the
Caucasus, but until these few months past have been as happy as
heart could wish. True, we have often been called upon to confront
the Cossack, but that is a duty and a pleasure, and the tide of
battle once over, we have returned with renewed joy to our cottage
homes. Our hearths are rude and homely, but our wants are few, and
our hearts are warm among our native hills.

"Suddenly, a hawk swooped down upon our mountain side, and bore away
the sweetest and most innocent dove that nestled there, making
desolate many hearts, and causing an aged mother and father to weep
tears of bitter anguish. I loved that being, excellency, so well
that my whole soul was hers, and she too in turn loved me. Broken
hearted and most miserable I have wandered hither to seek her, for
hither I found that she had been brought, and perhaps even now is
the unhappy slave of some heartless one, and is pining for the home
she has been torn from. If you would bless me, excellency, ay, bless
yourself by a noble deed, then aid me to find her in this great
capital."

The monarch listened with unfeigned interest, he, had a strong dash
of romance in his disposition, besides which he could feel for the
disconsolate lover now, since his own heart bad been so awakened to
itself.

"Your story interests me," said the Sultan, still regarding him
intently.

"It is very simple, excellency, but alas! it is also very true," was
the reply.

"What name do you bear?"

"Aphiz Adegah, excellency!"

"And what was her name of whom you have spoken?"

"Her name was Komel."

At the same moment that he answered thus, Lalla turned by chance
from her engravings, towards them, when her eyes resting upon those
of Aphiz, she rose, staggered a few steps towards him, and uttered a
scream so shrill and piercing that even the imperturbable Turk
sprang to his feet in amazement, while Aphiz cried:

"It is she, it is my lost Komel!"






CHAPTER VII.

THE SULTAN'S PRISONER.





The Sultan was as capable of revenge as he was of love or gratitude,
and this, Aphiz was destined to learn to his sorrow; for no sooner
did the monarch comprehend the scene we have just described, after
having heard the story of Aphiz related, than he immediately
summoned the guard, and the young Circassian found himself borne
away to a place of confinement within the seraglio gardens, where he
was left alone to ponder upon his singular situation. It was not an
easy task for him to divest his mind of the thought that all was a
dream, so singular were the threads of the past woven together since
the happy hours when Komel and himself bade good night at her
father's cottage door.

As to the fair and beautiful slave herself, she was conducted back
to the harem, at the same time that Aphiz was borne away to prison,
but a new world had opened to her. Her voice and hearing, lost by
the fearful shock she had realized by that sight of bloodshed on the
night when they stole her away from her parents, had, strangely
enough, been again restored by a shock scarcely less potent in its
effect upon her. That startling scream which she uttered on
beholding Aphiz had loosened the portals of her ears, and the
violent effort made in order to utter that exclamation had again
loosened the power of utterance. In spite of the attending
circumstances, she could not but rejoice at the return of those
faculties that she had now been taught the value of.

The delight of the Sultan at Komel's recovery of her speech and
hearing, was only equalled by his uneasiness at the extraordinary
position of affairs between himself and the man who had so gallantly
saved his life on the Belgrade plains. Loving his slave so tenderly,
what could he do under the circumstances? He now found the music of
her voice as delicious as the almost angelic beauty of her form and
features, and so charmed was he with the improvement that Komel
evinced, and so did he love to listen to her voice, that he could
even bear to hear her plead for Aphiz, and beseech that he might be
brought to her. Much as this would have been against his own
feelings and wishes, still to have her talk to him he listened
patiently, or seemed to do so, even while she besought him thus.

There was another being whose joy at Komel's recovery of her speech
seemed, if possible, more extravagant even than the Sultan's, and
far more remarkable in manifestation. When the idiot boy first heard
her voice, he started, and crouching like an animal, crept away to a
spot whence he could observe her without himself being seen. By
degrees he drew nearer, and finally received her kind tokens without
any evidences of fear. And by degrees, as she spoke to him and
tutored her words to his simple capacity, he seemed to be filled
with the very ecstasy of joy, and ran and leaped like a hound newly
loosed from confinement. Then he would return, and taking her hand,
place it upon his forehead and temples, and then curling his body
into a ball, lie motionless by her side.

"You love this young Circassian, and would leave me and your present
home for him?" asked the Sultan, as Komel entered the reception
saloon in answer to a summons he had sent to her.

"I do love him, excellency," replied the slave, honestly; "we were
children together, and I cannot remember the time when I loved him
not, for we were always as brother and sister."

"There are not many of thy nation, Komel, who would choose an humble
mountaineer to a Sultan," said the monarch, with a bitter intonation
of voice.

"Alas! excellency," she replied, "too many of my untutored
countrywomen, being brought up from their infancy to consider it as
their infallible lot, make a barter of their hearts for gold. Such
know no true promptings of love."

"You are happy and contented here, you want for nothing, you are the
mistress of this broad palace. Bid me send thy countryman away
loaded with gold, and we will live always together."

"Excellency, I am not happy here, and though I participate in all
the splendor you so liberally furnish for me, my heart, alas! is
ever straying back to my humble home."

"This feeling of discontent will soon die away, Komel, and you will
be happy again," said the Sultan, toying with her delicate hands
which had been tipped at the finger ends by the Nubian slaves with
the henna dye.

"Never, excellency, my early home and my heart will always be
together," she replied, with a sigh.

"Nevertheless, Komel," continued the Sultan in a decided tone of
voice, "you are my slave, and I love you. This being the case, think
you I shall be very ready to part with you?"

"Ah! excellency, you are too generous, too kind-hearted, to detain
me here against my wishes. I know this by the gentle and considerate
care I have already received at your hands."

"You mistake, you mistake," repeated the Sultan, earnestly; "that
was because I loved you so well, Komel. I saw in you, not only the
transparent beauty with which Heaven has endowed your race, but a
soul and intelligence that won my heart. Your infirmity, now so
suddenly removed, demanded for you every consideration, but now
aroused by the opposition that circumstances seem to have woven
around me, other feelings are fast becoming rooted in my breast.
Shall such as I am be thwarted in my wish by an humble mountaineer
of the Caucasus?"

As the monarch spoke thus he laid aside the mouth-piece of his pipe,
and leaning upon his elbow amid the yielding cushions, covered his
face with his hand and seemed lost in silent meditation.

The beautiful slave regarded him intently while he remained in this
position. His uniform kindness to her for so long a period had led
her to regard him with no slight attachment, but she knew that Aphiz
was at that very moment under close confinement within the palace
walls for his faithfulness in following and seeking her, and as she
was wholly his before, this but endeared him more earnestly to her.
All the splendor that Sultan Mahomet could offer her, the rank and
wealth, were all counted as naught in comparison with the tender
affection which had grown up with her from childhood.

She awaited in silence the monarch's mood, but resolved to appeal to
his mercy, and beg him to release both Aphiz and herself, that they
might return together once more to their distant home.

But alas! how utterly useless were all her efforts to this end. They
were received by the Sultan in that cold, irrascible spirit that
seems to form so large a share of the Turkish character. Her words
seemed only to arouse and fret him now, and she could see in his
looks of fixed determination and resolve that in the end he would
stop at no means to gratify his own wishes, and that perhaps,
Aphiz's life alone would satisfy his bitter spirit. It was a fearful
thought that he should be sacrificed for her sake, and she trembled
as she looked into the dark depths of his stern, cold eye, which had
never beamed on her thus before.

She crept nearer to his side, and raising his hand within her own,
besought him to look kindly upon her again, to smile on her as he
used to do. It was a gentle, confiding and entreating appeal, and
for a moment the stern features of the monarch did relent, but it
was for an instant only his thoughts troubled him, and he was ill at
ease.

In the meantime Aphiz Adegah found himself confined in a close
prison; the entire current of his feelings were changed by the
discovery he had made. Not having been able to exchange one word
with Komel, of course he could not possibly know aught of her real
situation further than appearances indicated by her presence there,
and he could not but tremble at the fear that naturally suggested
itself to his mind as to the relationship which she bore to the
Sultan--In this painful state of doubt, he counted the weary hours in
his lonely cell, and calmly awaited his impending fate, let it be
what it might.

He knew the summary mode in which Turkish justice was administered;
he was not unfamiliar with the dark stories that were told of sunken
bodies about the outer bastion of the palace where its walls were
laved by the Bosphorus. He knew very well that an unfaithful wife or
rival lover was often sacrificed to the pride or revenge of any
titled or rich Turk who happened to possess the power to enable him
to carry out his purpose. Knowing all this he prepared his mind for
whatever might come, and had he been summoned to follow a guard
detailed to sink him in the sea, he would not have been surprised.
The idiot boy, half-witted as he was, seemed at once by some natural
instinct to divine the relationship that existed between Komel and
the prisoner, and suggested to her a plan of communication with him
by means of flowers. She saw the boy gather up a handful of loose
buds and blossoms from her lap several times, and observed him carry
them away. Curiosity led her to see what he did with then, and she
followed him as far as she might do consistently with the rules of
the harem, and from thence observed him scale a tree that overhung a
dark sombre-looking building, and toss the flowers through a small
window, into what she knew at once must be Aphiz's cell.

In childhood, Aphiz and herself had often interpreted to each other
the language of flowers, and now hastening back to the luxuriant
conservatory of plants, she culled such as she desired, and
arranging them with nervous fingers, told in their fragrant folds
how tenderly she still loved him, and that she was still true to
their plighted faith.

Entrusting this to the boy she indicated what he was to do with it,
while the poor half-witted being seemed in an ecstacy of delight at
his commission, and soon deposited the precious token inside the
window of Aphiz's prison.

It needed no conjuror to tell Aphiz whom that floral letter came
from. The shower of buds and blossoms that had been thrown to him by
the boy had puzzled him, coming without any apparent design,
regularity, or purpose; but this, as he read its hidden mystery, was
all clear enough to him, he knew the hand that had to gathered and
bound them together. She was true and loved him still.

Komel, in her earnest love, despite the rebuff she had already
received, determined once more to appeal to the Sultan for the
release of his prisoner. But the monarch had grown moody and
thoughtful, as we have seen, when he realized that his slave loved
another; and every word she now uttered in his behalf was bitterness
to his very soul. She only found that he was the more firmly set in
his design as to retraining her in the harem, if not to take the
life of the young mountaineer.

The Sultan brooded over this state of affairs with a settled frown
upon his brow. Had it not been that Aphiz had saved his life by his
brave assistance at a critical moment, he would not have hesitated
one instant as to what he should do, for had it been otherwise he
would have ordered him to be destroyed as quickly as he would have
ordered the execution of any criminal.--But hardened and calloused as
he was by power, and self-willed as he was from never being thwarted
in his wishes, yet he found it difficult to give the order that
should sacrifice the life of one who had so gallantly saved him from
peril.

At last the monarch seemed to have resolved upon some plan, whereby
he hoped to relieve himself from the dilemma that so seriously
annoyed him. He was most expert at disguises; indeed, it was often
his custom to walk the streets of his capital incog, or to ride out
unattended, in a plain citizen's dress, as we have seen, that he
might the better observe for himself those things concerning which
he required accurate information. It was then nothing new for him to
don the dress of an officer of the household guard; and in this
costume he visited Aphiz in his cell, representing himself to be the
agent of the Sultan.

"I come as an agent of the Sultan," he said, as the turnkey
introduced him to the cell.

"The Sultan is very gracious to remember' me; what is his will?"
asked the prisoner.

"He has a proposition to offer you, to which, if you accede, you are
at once free to go from here."

"And what are these terms?" asked Aphiz, with perfect coolness.

"That you instantly leave Constantinople, never again to return to
it."

"Alone?"

"Except that he will fill a purse with gold for thee to help thee on
thy homeward way."

"I shall never leave the city alone," replied the prisoner, with
firmness.

"Is that your answer?"

"As well thus perhaps as any way. I shall never leave this city
without Komel."

"But if you remain it may cost you your life," continued the
stranger.

"I do not fear death," replied the Circassian, with the utmost
coolness.

"A painful and degrading death," suggested the agent, earnestly.

"I care not. I have faced death in too many forms to fear him in
any."

"Stubborn man!" continued the visiter, irritated in the extreme at
the cool decision and dauntless bravery of the prisoner, adding,
"you tempt your own fate by refusing this generous offer."

"No fate can be worse than to be separated from her I love. If that
is to be done, then welcome death; for life without her would cease
to be desirable."

"Do not be hasty in your decision."

"I am all calmness," was the reply.

"And shall I bear your refusal to leave the city, to the Sultan?
Weigh the matter well; you can return to your native land with a
purse heavy with gold, but if you remain you die."

"You have then my plain refusal of the terms. Tell the Sultan for
me,"--Aphiz in his acuteness easily penetrated the monarch's
disguise,--"tell him I thank him heartily for the generous means that
he afforded me when I was poor and needy, and whereby I have been
supported in his capital so long. Tell him too that I forgive him
for this causeless imprisonment, and that if it be his will that I
should die, because I love one who has loved me from childhood, I
forgive him that also."

"You will not reconsider this answer."

"I am firm, and no casualty can alter my feelings, no threats can
alarm me."

The visiter could not suppress his impatience at these remarks, but
telling Aphiz that if he repeated his answer to the Sultan he feared
that it would seal his fate forever, he left him once more alone.

Aphiz, as we have said, knew very well who had visited him in his
cell, and now that he was gone he composed himself as best he could,
placing Komel's bouquet in his bosom and trying to sleep, for it was
now night. But he felt satisfied in his own mind that his worst
expectations would be realized ere long, for he had marked well the
expression of the Sultan's face, and he fell asleep to dream that he
had bidden Komel and life itself adieu.

And while he, whom she loved so well, lay upon the damp floor of the
cell to sleep, Komel lounged on a couch of downy softness, and was
lulled to sleep by the playing of sweet fountains, and the gentle
notes of the lute played by a slave, close by her couch, that her
dreams might be sweet and her senses beguiled to rest by sweet
harmony. But the lovely girl forgot him not, and her dreams were of
him as her waking thoughts were ever full of him.

What is there, this side of heaven, brighter than the enduring
constancy of woman?






CHAPTER VIII.

PUNISHMENT OF THE SACK.





The sun was almost set, and the soft twilight was creeping over the
incomparable scenery that renders the coast of Marmora so beautiful;
the gilded spires of the oriental capital were not more brilliant
than the dimpled surface of the sea where it opened and spread away
from the mouth of the Bosphorus. The blue waters had robbed the
evening sky of its blushing tints, and seemed to revel in the
richness of its coloring.--It was at this calm and quiet hour that a
caique, propelled by a dozen oarsmen, shot out from the shore of the
Seraglio Point, and swept round at once with its prow turned towards
the open sea. In the stern at two dark, uncouth looking Turks,
between whom was a young man who seemed to be under restraint, and
in whom the reader would have recognized Aphiz, the Sultan's
prisoner.

It was plain that the caique was bound on some errand of more than
ordinary interest, and many eyes from the shore were regarding it
curiously, as did also the various boat crews that met it on the
water.

Still it held on its way steadily, propelled by the long, regular
stroke of the oarsmen over the half mile of blue water that
separates Europe and Asia at this point, sweeping as it went by,
lovely villages, mosques, minarets, and the dark cemeteries that
line the shores, until, a certain point having been gained, the
oarsmen at a signal from those in the stern, rested from their
labors, while the boat still glided on from the impetus it had
received. In a moment more, Aphiz was completely covered with a
large, stout canvas bag or sack, which was secured about him and
tied up. At one extremity was attached a heavy shot, and when these
preparations were completed, he was cast into the sea, sinking as
quickly from sight as a stone might have done. A few bubbles rose to
the surface where the sack had gone down, and all was over. The bows
of the caique were instantly turned towards the city, and the men
gave way as carelessly as though nothing uncommon had transpired.

Aphiz had thus been made to suffer the penalty usually inflicted
upon certain crimes, and especially to the wives of such of the
Turks as suspected them of inconstancy, a punishment that is even to
this day common in Constantinople. The Sultan had reasoned that if
Komel knew Aphiz Adegah to be dead, she would after awhile recover
from the shock, and gradually forgetting him, receive his own regard
instead of that of the young mountaineer, as he would have her do
voluntarily; for he felt, as much as he coveted her favor, that he
could never claim her for a wife unless it was with her own consent
and free will. If he had not love her, he would have felt
differently, and would have commanded that favor which now would
lose its charms unless 'twas wooed and won.

But we shall see how mistaken the monarch was in his selfish
calculations.

Reasoning upon the grounds that we have named, the Sultan had
ordered Aphiz to be drowned in the Bosphorus, as we have seen, and
the deed was performed by the regular executioners of government.
The Sultan was supreme, and his orders were obeyed without question;
this being the case, Aphiz's fate caused no remark even among the
gossips.

The few days that had transpired since Komel had regained her speech
and hearing, had of course taught her more in relation to her actual
situation and the character of those about her than she had been
able to gather by silent observation during her entire previous
confinement in the harem of the palace.

She was aware that the Sultan was impetuous and self-willed, but she
could hardly bring her mind to believe that he would actually put in
practice such a piece of villany as should cost Aphiz his life.
Knowing as much as she did of his imperious and stern habits, she
did not believe him capable of such cold-blooded baseness. But no
sooner had the officers, sent to execute his sentence against the
innocent mountaineer, returned and announced the task as performed,
than Komel was summoned to the presence of the the Sultan.

"I have sent for you, Komel," said the monarch, while he regarded
her intently as he spoke, "to tell you that Aphiz is dead."

"Dead, excellency; do you say dead?"

"Yes."

"You do but jest with me, excellency," she said, trying in her
tremor to smile.

"I rarely jest with any one and surely should not have sent for you
were I in that mood. He has gone to make food for the fishes at the
bottom of the Bosphorus."

"Has his life been taken by your orders, excellency?" she asked,
with a pallid cheek and blanched lips.

"You have said," answered the Sultan.

"Ah! excellency, I am but a weak girl and can ill abide a jest.
Aphiz can have done nothing to receive your displeasure, and surely
you would not take his life without reason."

"I had reason sufficient for me."

"What was it, excellency?"

"The fellow loved you, Komel."

"O, sorrow me, sorrow me, that his love for should have been his
ending."

The struggle in the beautiful girl's bosom for a moment was fearful.
It was like the rough and sudden blast that sweeps tempest--like over
a glassy lake and turns its calm waters into trembling waves and
dark shadows. She did not give way under the fearful news that she
hear; a counter current of feeling seemed to save her, and to bring
back the color once more to her lips, and cheeks, and to add
brilliancy to the large, lustrous eyes so peculiar to her race. All
this the Sultan marked well, and indeed was at a loss rightly to
understand these demonstrations.

So quick and marked was the change that it puzzled the monarch,
though he read something still of its rightful character, for he had
known before the bitterness of a revengeful spirit, and bore upon
his breast, at that hour, the deep impression of a dagger's point,
where a Circassian slave, whom he had deprived of her child, had
attempted to stab him to the heart. And now as he looked upon Komel,
he thought he could read some such spirit in the expression of the
beautiful slave before him, and he was right! Dark thoughts seemed
to be struggling even in her gentle breast, when she realized that
Aphiz was no more, and that his murderer was before her.

Nothing in reality could be more gentle than the loving disposition
of the slave. Her natural character was all tenderness and modest
diffidence, but she had now been touched at a point where she was
most sensitive. Aphiz, without the shadow of guilt, save that he was
true in his love to her, had been murdered in cold blood, and the
announcement of the fact by the Sultan had chilled every fountain of
tenderness in her bosom. She looked wistfully at the jewelled dagger
that hung in the monarch's girdle, and fearful thoughts were
thronging her brain. The Sultan little knew on how slender thread
his life hung at that moment, for a very slight blow from his
dagger, swiftly and truly given, would have revenged Aphiz in a
moment.

"And what end do you propose to yourself that this deed has been
done?" she asked, after a few moments' pause, during which the
Sultan had regarded her most intently, and, if possible, with
increased interest, at the picture she now presented of startled and
spirited energy.

"You told me, Komel, that you loved him, did you not?" he asked.

"I did."

"Can you see no reason now why he should not live, at least, in
Constantinople?"

"None."

"He had his choice, and was told that he might leave here in peace;
but he chose to stay and die."

"And for his devotion to me you have killed him?" continued Komel,
bitterly.

"Not for his devotion, but his stubbornness," said the Sultan.
"Come, Komel, smile once more. He is dead-time flies quickly on, and
he will soon be forgotten."

"Never!" replied the slave, with startling energy. "You will find
that a Circassian's heart is not so easily moulded in a Turkish
shape!"

The monarch bit his lip at the sarcasm of the remark, and as it, was
expressed with no lack of bitterness, it could not but cut him
keenly. Still preserving that calm self-possession which a full
consciousness of his power imparted, he smiled instead of frowning
upon her, and said:

"You are heated now; to-morrow, or perhaps the next day, you may
come to me, and I trust that you will then be in a better humor than
at present."

Komel bowed coldly at the intimation, while her expression told how
bitterly she felt towards him.

A dark frown came over the Sultan's face at the same moment, and an
accurate reader of physiognomy would have detected the fear
expressed there that his violent purpose, as executed upon Aphiz,
had failed totally of success.

Turning coldly away from him, the slave sought her own apartment in
the gorgeous palace, to mourn in silence and alone over the fearful
and bitter news she had just heard concerning one who was to her all
in all, and who had taken with him her heart to the spirit land. The
world, and all future time, looked to her like a blank, as though
overspread by one heavy cloud, that obliterated entirely and forever
the sight of that sun which had so long warmed her heart with its
genial rays. As we have already said, Komel lacked not for
tenderness of feeling. Her heart was gentle and susceptible; but
dashing now the tears from her eyes, she assumed a forced calmness,
and strove to reason with herself as she said, quietly, "We shall
meet again in heaven!" Humming some wild air of her native land, the
slave then tried to lose herself in some trifling occupation, that
she might partially forget her sorrows.

Her flowers were not forgotten, nor her pet pigeons unattended. She
wandered amid the fragrant divisions of the harem, and threw herself
down by its bubbling jets and fountains as she had done before, but
not thoughtlessly. The spirit of Aphiz seemed to her to be ever by
her side, and she would talk to him as though he was actually
present, in soft and tender whispers, and sing the songs of their
native valley with low and witching cadence; and thus she was
partially happy, for the soul is where it loves, rather than where
it lives. From childhood she had been taught to believe the
Swedenborgian doctrine, of the presence of the spirits of those who
have gone before us to the better land; and she deemed, as we have
said, that Aphiz Adegah was ever by her side, listening to her, and
sympathizing with all she did and said.

It is a happy faith, that the disembodied spirits of those whom we
have loved and respected here are still, though invisible, watching
over us with tender solicitude. Such a realization must be
chastening in its influence, for who would do an unworthy deed,
believing his every act visible to those eyes that he had delighted
to please on earth? And yet, could we but realize it, there is
always one eye, the Infinite and Supreme One, ever upon us, and
should we not be equally sensitive in our doings beneath his ever
present being?

It was the character of Komel's belief as to the spirits of the
departed, that rendered her so calm and resigned, though the Sultan,
in his blindness, attributed it to the forgetfulness engendered by
time, and smiled to himself to think how quickly the fickle girl had
forgotten one whose ardent devotion to her cost him his life. "She
scarcely deserved this fidelity on his part," said the monarch, with
a dark frown, as the memory of the gallant service the young
Circassian had done him when he was beset by the Bedouins, flashed
across his mind, rendering even his hardened spirit, for a moment,
uneasy. "The difficulty, after all," he said to him himself, "is not
so much to die for one we love, as to find one worthy of dying for."
Shaking an extra dose of the powdered drug into the bowl of his
pipe, the blue smoke curled away in tiny clouds above his head,
while its narcotic effect soon lulled both mental and physical
faculties into a state of dreamy insensibility.

What ardent spirits are to our countrymen, opium is in the East,
except, perhaps that the powerful drug is more exalting in its
stimulating influences, and less vile in its immediate effects; but
no less severe is it to hurry those who indulge in such dissipation,
with a broken constitution and ruined mental faculties to the grave.

Komel seemed gradually to settle down to a quiet and even half
satisfied consciousness of her situation. True, she could not but
often sigh for her home and parents, but with her more settled
condition fresh spirits had come to her features, and renewed
energies were depicted in every movement of her graceful and lovely
form. Though constantly surrounded by a troop of slaves, chosen
solely for their personal beauty and the charms that made them excel
their sex generally, still she outshone them all, and that, too,
without the simplest effort to do so; and yet for all this, so sweet
was her native disposition, and so winning and gentle her spirit at
all times, that they loved her still as at first, without one
thought of envy or jealousy.

So far as her companions were concerned, therefore, she could hardly
have been more happily situated than she was, and for their kindness
she strove to manifest the kind, affectionate promptings that
actuated her heart. She even joined them in many of their games and
sports, though most of her time was passed alone, save that the
idiot boy almost ever sought her out, and came and slept at her
side, or seemed to do so, only too much delighted when she showed
him any little, careful attention, and watching her when she did not
observe him, with an intensity that seemed strange in one who was
not supposed to be possessed of any actual reasoning powers, or
indeed of much brains at all.

Having no mental occupation, the poor boy. who was, as far as his
physical developments went, a specimen of rare youthful beauty and
grace of form, employed a large portion of his time in such
exercises and feats of agility as a sort of animal instinct might
lead him to attempt, and thus Komel was often startled by suddenly
beholding him dangling by his feet from some lofty cypress, swinging
to and fro like a monkey; or to observe him turning a series of
summersets, in a broad circle, with such incredible swiftness as to
cause all distinctness of his form to be lost, producing a most
singular and magical appearance. Then, perhaps, after forming a
circle thus on the green sod he would suddenly plunge into its
midst, coil himself up like a snail, or put his head between his
feet, and thus go to sleep, or lie there as still as though he had
been a stone, for hours at a time.

Thus, days and weeks passed on in the same routine of fairy-like
scenes, and the Sultan's slaves counted not the time that brought to
them but a never varying dull monotony of indolent luxuriance. They
had no intellectual pursuits or tastes, and therefore were but sorry
companions for one whose native intelligence was so prominent a
trait in her character. Thus it was, therefore, having no one with
whom she could truly and honestly sympathize, that Komel preferred
to whisper her thoughts to the birds and flowers, and to fancy that
Aphiz's spirit was near by, smiling upon her the while. What a
strange and dreamy life the Circassian was passing in the Sultan's
harem!

Komel, it is true, mourned for her liberty, and what caged bird is
there that does not!






CHAPTER IX.

THE LOVER'S STRATAGEM.





It was morning in the East, and all things partook of the dewy
freshness of early days.--The busy din of the city was momentarily
increasing, and as the hours advanced, the broad sunlight gilded all
things far and near. It was at this bright and exhilarating hour
that two persons sat together on the silky grass that caps the
summit of Bulgarlu. They had wandered hither, seemingly, to view the
splendid scenery together, and were regarding it with earnest eyes.

How beautiful looked the Turkish capital below them! From Seraglio
Point, seven miles down the coast of Roumelia, the eye followed a
continued wall, and from the same point twenty miles up the
Bosphorus on either shore, stretched one crowded and unbroken city,
with its star-shaped bay in the midst, floating a thousand maritime
crafts, prominent among which were the Turkish men-of-war flaunting
their blood-red flags in the breeze. Far away over the Sea of
Mannora their eyes rested on a snow-white cloud at the edge of the
horizon. It was Mount Olympus, the fabulous residence of the gods.
In this far-off scene, too, lay Bithynia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia,
and the entire scene of the apostle Paul's travels in Asia Minor.
Then their eyes wandered back once more and rested now on the old
Fortress of the Seven Towers, where fell the emperor Constantine,
and where Othman the second was strangled.

Between the Seven Towers and the Golden Horn, were the seven hills
of ancient Stamboul, the towering arches of the aqueduct of Valens
crossing from one to another, and the swelling domes and gold-tipped
minarets of a hundred imperial mosques crowning their summits. And
there too was Seraglio Point, a spot of enchanting loveliness,
forming a tiny cape as it projects towards the opposite continent
and separates the bay from the Sea of Marmora; its palaces buried in
soft foliage, out of which gleam gilded cupolas and gay balconies
and a myriad of brilliant and glittering domes. And then their eyes
ran down the silvery link between the two seas, where lay fifty
valleys and thirty rivers, while an imperial palace rests on each of
the loveliest spots, the entire length, from the Black Sea to
Marmora.

Such was the beautiful and classic scenery that lay outspread before
the two young persons who had seated themselves on the summit of
Bulgarlu, and if its charms had power over the casual observer, how
much more beautiful did it appear to these two who saw it through
each other's eyes. A closer observation would have shown that one of
the couple was a female, for some purpose seeking to disguise her
sex; he by her side was evidently her lover, to meet whom, she had
hazarded this exposure beyond the city walls at so early an hour.

"Ah, dearest Zillah'," said he who sat by the maiden's side, "I
would that we lived beyond the sea from whence, come those ships
that bear the stars and stripes, for I am told that in America,
religious belief is no bar to the union of heart, as it is in the
Sultan's domains."

"Nor should it be so here, Capt. Selim," she answered, "did our
noble Sultan understand the best good of his people. May the Prophet
open his eyes."

"Though I love thee far better than all else on the earth, Zillah,
still I cannot abjure my Christian faith, and, like a hypocrite,
pretend to be a true follower of Mahomet. At best, we can be but a
short time here on earth, and if I was unfaithful in my holy creed,
how could I hope at last to meet thee, dearest, in paradise?"

"I do love thee but the more dearly," she replied, "for thy
constancy to the Christian faith, and though my father has reared me
in the Mussulman belief, still I am no bigot, as thou knowest."

Zillah was a child in years--scarcely sixteen summers had developed
their power in her slight but beautiful form, and yet it was rounded
so nearly to perfection, so slightly and gracefully full, as to
captivate the most fastidious eye. Like every child of these Turkish
harems, she was beautiful, with feature of faultless regularity, and
eyes that were almost too large and brilliant.

He who was her companion, and whom she had called Capt. Selim, was
the same young officer whom the reader met in an early chapter at
the slave bazaar, and who bid to the extent of his means for Komel,
who was at last borne away by the Sultan's agent. He was well formed
and handsome, his undress uniform showing him to be attached to the
naval service of the Sultan. He might be four or five years her
senior, but though he appeared thus young, he seemed to have many
years of experience, with an unflinching steadiness of purpose
denoted in his countenance, showing him fitted for stern emergencies
calling for promptness and