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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's
+Favorite:  A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus
+by Lieutenant Maturin Murray
+(#2 in our series by Lieutenant Maturin Murray)
+
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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 daring in the hour of danger. The story
+of their love was easily told. While young Selim was yet a
+lieutenant in the Sultan's navy, a caique containing Zillah and the
+rich of Bey, her father, had met with an accident in the Bosphorus
+while close by a boat which he commanded, and by which accident
+Zillah was thrown into the water, and but for the officer's prompt
+delivery would doubtless have been drowned. But with a stout
+purpose, and being a daring swimmer, he bore her safely to the
+shore.
+
+With the suddenness of oriental passion they loved at once, but
+their after intercourse was necessarily kept a secret, since they
+knew full well that the Bey would at once punish them both if he
+should discover them, for how could a Musselman tolerate a
+Christian, and to this sect the young officer was known to belong.
+They had met often thus, and by the ingenious device adopted in
+Zillah's dress had avoided detection. But these stolen meetings, so
+sweet, were fearfully dangerous to the young officer, the punishment
+of his offence, if discovered, being death.
+
+Finally, on one of these stolen excursions, Zillah was detained so
+long as to cause notice and surprise in the harem, and when she
+returned she was reprimanded by the Bey, who gave orders, that for
+the future she should not be permitted to leave the garden walks of
+the palace, and the poor girl pined like a caged wild bird. The
+latticed balcony of Zillah's apartment, like many of the Turkish
+houses, overhung the Bosphorus, so that a boat might lie beneath it
+within a distance to afford easy means of communication, and thus
+Selim still was able at times, though with the utmost caution, to
+hold converse with her he loved so well.
+
+But Zillah's susceptible and gentle disposition could not sustain
+her present treatment. She loved the young officer so earnestly and
+truly that it was misery to be deprived of his society as was now
+the case, for even their partial intercourse had been suspended
+since the Bey had discovered his daughter talking to some one, and
+he had forbidden her to ever enter the apartment again that overhung
+the water.
+
+Thus confined and crossed in her feelings, Zillah grew sick, and
+paler and paler each day, until the old Bey, now thoroughly aroused,
+was extremely anxious lest she should be taken to the Prophet's
+house. The best sages and doctors to be found were summoned, and
+constantly attended the drooping flower, but alas! to no effect.
+Their art was not cunning enough to discover the true cause of her
+malady, and they could only shake their heads, and strike their
+beards ominously to the inquiries of the anxious old Bey, her
+father.
+
+The cold-hearted Bey never dreamed of the real cause of her illness.
+True, he had suspected her of being too unguarded in her habits,
+and had laid restrictions upon her liberty, but as to disappointment
+in love being the cause of her malady, indeed it did not seem to his
+heartless disposition that love could produce such a result. She was
+perhaps the only being in the world who had ever caused him to
+realize that he had a heart. After thinking long and much upon the
+illness of his child, he resolved to seek her confidence, and
+turning his steps toward the harem, he found his drooping and fading
+flower reclining upon a velvet couch. Seating himself by her side,
+he parted the hair from her fair, young brow, and told his child how
+dearly he loved her, and if aught weighed upon her mind he besought
+her to open her lips and speak to him. Zillah loved her father,
+though she was not blind to his many faults.
+
+"Dear father, what shall I say to thee?"
+
+"Speak thy whole heart, my child."
+
+"Nay, but it would only displease thee, my father, for me to do so."
+
+"Tell me, Zillah, if thou knowest what it is that sickens thee, and
+robs thy cheek of its bloom?"
+
+"Father," she answered, with a sigh, "my heart is breaking with
+unhappy love."
+
+"Love!"
+
+"Ay, I love Selim, he who saved me from drowning in the Bosphorus."
+
+"The Sultan's officer?"
+
+"Yes, father, Capt. Selim."
+
+"Why, child, that young rascal is a notorious dog of a Christian. Do
+you know it?"
+
+"I know he believes not in the faith of our fathers," she answered,
+modestly.
+
+The old Turk bit his lips with vexation, but dared not vent the
+passion he felt in the delicate ear of his sick child. Indeed he had
+only to look into her pale face to turn the whole current of his
+anger into pity at the danger he read there.
+
+The old Bey knew the spirit that Zillah had inherited both from
+himself and from her mother, and that she was fixed in her purpose.
+She frankly told him that she could never be happy unless Selim was
+her husband. The father was most sadly annoyed. He referred to the
+best physicians in the city to know if a malady such as his daughter
+suffered under, could prove fatal, and they assured him that this
+had frequently been the case. One, however, to whom he applied,
+informed the Bey that he knew of a Jewish leech who was famed for
+curing all maladies arising from depression, physical or mental, and
+if he desired it, he would send the Jew to his house on the
+subsequent day, when he would say if he could do her any good as it
+regarded her illness.
+
+Much as the Mussulman despised the race, still, in the hope of
+benefiting his child by the man's medical skill, he desired the
+Armenian physician to send the Jew, as he proposed, on the following
+day, and paying the heavy fee that these leeches know so well how to
+charge the rich old Turks, the Bey departed once more to his palace.
+
+At the hour appointed, the Armenian physician despatched the Jewish
+doctor to the Bey's gates, where he was admitted, and received with
+as much respect as the Turk could bring his mind to show towards
+unbelievers, and the business being properly premised, the father
+told the Jew how his daughter was affected, and asked if he might
+hope for her recovery.
+
+"With great care and cunning skill, perhaps so," said the Jew, from
+out his overgrown beard.
+
+"If this can be accomplished through thy means, I make thee rich for
+life," said the Bey.
+
+"We can but try," said the Jew, "and hope for the best. Lead me to
+thy daughter."
+
+The Bey conducted the leech to his daughter's apartment, and bidding
+her tell freely all her pains and ills, left the Jew to study her
+case, while he retired once more to silent converse with himself.
+
+"You are ill," said the Jew, addressing Zillah, while he seated
+himself and rested his head upon his staff.
+
+"Yes, I am indeed."
+
+"And yet methinks no physical harm is visible in thy person. The
+pain is in the heart?"
+
+"You speak truly," said Zillah, with a sigh--"I am very unhappy."
+
+"You love?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And art loved again?"
+
+"Truly, I believe so."
+
+"Then, whencefore art thou unhappy; reciprocal love begets not
+unhappiness?"
+
+"True, good leech; but he whom I love so well is a Christian, and I
+can hold no communication with him, much less even hope to be his
+wife."
+
+"Do you love him so well that you would leave home, father,
+everything, for him?" asked the Jew.
+
+"Alas! it would be hard to leave my father but still am I so wholly
+his, I would do even so."
+
+"Then may you be happy yet," said he, who spoke to her, as he tossed
+back the hood of his gaberdine, and removed the false hair that he
+wore, presenting the features of young Selim, whom she loved!
+
+"How is this possible?" she said, between her sobs and smiles of
+joy; "my father told me that the Armenian recommended you for your
+skill in the healing art."
+
+"He is my friend, the man who taught me my religion, my everything,
+and the only confidant I have in all Constantinople. To him I told
+the grief of my heart at our separation; by chance your father
+called on him for counsel; he knew the Bey, and his mind suggested
+that I was the true physician whom you needed, and fabricating the
+story of my profession, he sent me hither."
+
+The fair young girl gazed at him she loved, and wept with joy, and
+with her hands held tremblingly in his own, Selim told her of a plan
+he had formed for their escape from the city to some distant land
+where they might live together unmolested and happy in each other's
+society. He explained to her that he should tell her father that it
+was necessary for him to administer certain medicines to her beneath
+the rays of the moon, and that while she was strolling with him thus
+the water's edge, he would have a boat ready and at a favorable
+moment jumping into this, they would speed away.
+
+The moments flew with fearful speed, and pressing her tenderly to
+his heart, the pretended Jew had only time to resume his disguise
+when the Bey entered. He saw in the face of his child a color and
+spirit that had not been there for months before, and delighted, he
+turned to the Jew to know if he had administered any of his cunning
+medicines, and being told that a small portion of the necessary
+article had been given, was overjoyed at the effect.
+
+Being of a naturally superstitious race, the Turk heard the Jew's
+proposition as it regarded the administering of his next dose of
+medicine beneath the calm rays of the moon in the open air, with
+satisfaction; for had he not already worked a miracle upon his
+child? He was told that by administering the medicine once or twice
+at the proper moment beneath the midnight rays of the moon, he
+should doubtless be able to effect a perfect cure.
+
+Satisfied fully of what he had seen and heard, he dismissed the
+pretended Jew with a heavy purse of gold, and bade him choose his
+own time, telling him also that his palace gates should ever be open
+to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE SERENADE.
+
+
+
+
+
+Beautiful as a poet's fancy can picture, is the seraglio, a fitting
+home for the proud Turkish monarch, gemmed with gardens, fantastic
+palaces, and every variety of building and tree on its gentle slope,
+descending so gracefully towards the sea, spreading before the eye
+its towers, domes, and dark spots of cypresses like a sacred
+division of the city of Constantinople, as indeed it is to the eye
+of the true believer.
+
+The Sultan's household were removed at his will from the Valley of
+Sweet Waters hither and back again, as fancy might dictate. Thus
+Komel had met her lover Aphiz Adegah here before his sentence; and
+here she was now, still queen of its royal master's heart, still the
+fairest creature that shone in the Sultan's harem. Every luxury and
+beauty that ingenuity could devise or wealthy purchase, surrounded
+her with oriental profusion. Still left entirely to herself, the
+same occupation employed her time, of tending flowers and toying
+with beautiful birds. Sometimes the Sultan would come and sit by her
+side, but he found that the wound he had given was not one to heal
+so quickly as he had supposed, and that the Circassian cherished the
+memory of Aphiz as tenderly as ever.
+
+The idiot boy, almost the only person in whom she seemed to take any
+real interest, still followed her footsteps hither and thither, now
+toying with some pet of the gardens, a parrot or a dog, now
+performing most incredible feats of legerdemain, running off upon
+his hands, with his feet in a perpendicular position, to a distance,
+and coming back again by a series of summersets, until suddenly
+gathering his limbs and body together like a ball, he went off
+rolling like a helpless mass down some gentle slope, and having
+reached the bottom, would lie there as if all life were gone, for
+the hour together, yet always so managing as to keep one eye upon
+Komel nearly all the while.
+
+The Circassian loved the poor half-witted boy, for love begets love,
+and the lad had seemed to love her from the first moment they had
+met in the Sultan's halls, since when they had been almost
+inseparable.
+
+It was on a fair summer's afternoon, that the Sultan, strolling in
+the flower gardens of the palace, either by design or accident, came
+upon a spot where Komel was half reclining upon one of the soft
+lounges that were strewn here and there under tiny latticed pagodas,
+to shelter the occupant from the sun. While yet a considerable way
+off, the Turk paused to admire his slave as she reclined there in
+easy and unaffected gracefulness, apparently lost in a day dream.
+She was very beautiful there all by herself, save the half-witted
+boy, who seemed to be asleep now, away out on the projecting limb of
+a cypress tree that nearly overhung the spot, and where he had
+coiled himself up, and managed to sustain his position upon the limb
+by some unaccountable means of his own.
+
+The Sultan drew quietly nearer until he was close by her side before
+she discovered him, when starting from the reverie that had bound
+her so long, she half rose out of respect for the monarch's
+presence, but no smile clothed her features; she welcomed him not by
+greeting of any kind.
+
+"What dreams my pretty favorite about, with her eyes open all the
+while?" asked the Sultan.
+
+"How knew you that I dreamed?"
+
+"I read it in your face. It needs no conjuror to define that,
+Komel."
+
+"Would you know of what I was thinking?"
+
+"It was my question, pretty one."
+
+"Of home--of my poor parents, and of my lost Aphiz," she answered,
+bitterly.
+
+"I have told thee to forget those matters, and content thyself here
+as mistress of my harem."
+
+"That can never be; my heart to-day is as much as ever among my
+native hills."
+
+"Well, Komel, time must and will change you, at last. We are not
+impatient."
+
+Had the monarch rightly interpreted the expression of her face at
+this moment, he would have understood how deeply rooted was her
+resolve, at least, so far as he was concerned, and that she bitterly
+despised the murderer of Aphiz, and in this spirit only could she
+look upon the proud master of the Turkish nation. He mistook Komel's
+disposition and nature, in supposing that she would ever forgive or
+tolerate him. He did not remember how unlike her people she had
+already proved herself. He did not realize that his high station,
+his wealth, the pomp and elegance that surrounded his slave, were
+looked upon by her only as the flowers that adorn the victim of a
+sacrifice. Having never been thwarted in his will and purpose, he
+had yet to learn that such a thing could be accomplished by a simple
+girl.
+
+As the Sultan turned an angle in the path that led towards the
+palace, he was met by one of the eunuch guards, who saluted him
+after the military style with his carbine, and marched steadily on
+in pursuance of his duty. The monarch did not even lift his eyes at
+the guard's salute--his thoughts were uneasy, and his brow dark with
+disappointment.
+
+It was but a few hours subsequent to the scene which we have just
+described, that Komel was again seated in the seraglio gardens on
+the gentle slope where it curves towards the sea. She had wandered
+beneath the bright stars and silvery moon as far as it was prudent
+for her to do, and cleft only the narrow path trod by the silent
+guard between her and the wall of the seraglio. The hour was so late
+that stillness reigned over the moon-lit capital, and the place was
+as silent as the deep shadows of night. The half-witted boy had
+followed her steps by swinging himself from tree to tree, until now
+he was close by the spot where she sat, though lost to sight among
+the thick foliage of the funereal cypress.
+
+Komel was thinking of the strange vicissitudes of her life, of her
+lost lover, of the dear cottage where she was born, and the happy
+home from which she had been so ruthlessly torn by violent hands. It
+was an hour for quiet thoughtfulness, and her innocent bosom heaved
+with almost audible motion as it realized the scene and her own
+memories. She sat and looked up at those bright lamps hung in the
+blue vault above her, until her eyes ached with the effort, and now
+the train of thoughts in which she had indulged, at last started the
+pearly drops upon her check, and dimmed her eyes. It was not often
+that she gave way to tears, but her thoughts, the scene about her,
+and everything, seemed to have combined to touch her tenderest
+sensibilities.
+
+In this mood, breathing the soft and gentle night breeze, she
+gradually lost her consciousness, and fell asleep as quietly as a
+babe might have done in its cradle, and presented a picture as pure
+and innocent.
+
+She dreamed, too, of home and all its happy associations. Once more,
+in fancy, she was by her own cottage door; once more she breathed
+her native mountain air, once more sat by the side of Aphiz, her
+loved, dearly loved companion. Ah! how her dimpled cheeks were
+wreathed in smiles while she slept; how happy and unconscious was
+the beautiful slave. And now she seems to hear the song of her
+native valley falling upon her ear as Aphiz used to sing it. Hark!
+is that delusion, or do those sounds actually fall upon her waking
+ear? Now she rouses, and like a startled fawn listens to hear from
+whence come those magic notes, and by whom could they be uttered.
+She stood electrified with amazement.
+
+And still there fell upon her ear the song of her native hills,
+breathed in a soft, low chant, to the accompaniment of a guitar, and
+in notes that seemed to thrill her very soul while she listened.
+
+They came evidently from beyond the seraglio wall, and from some
+boatman on the river. Then a sort of superstitious awe crept over
+the slave as she remembered that it was in these very waters that
+Aphiz had been drowned. Had his spirit come back to sing to her the
+song they had so often sung together? Thus she thought while she
+listened, and still the same sweet familiar notes came daintily over
+the night air to her ears. The only spot that commanded a view
+beyond the wall was occupied by the sentinel, and Komel could not
+gratify the almost irresistible desire to satisfy herself with her
+own eyes from whence these well remembered notes came. It was either
+Aphiz's spirit, or the voice of one born and bred among her native
+hills--of this she felt assured.
+
+So marked was her excitement, and so peculiar her behaviour, that
+the guard seemed at last aroused to take notice of the affair, and
+in his ignorance of the circumstances, presumed that the serenader,
+who could be seen in a small boat on the river from the spot where
+he stood, was attempting some intrigue with the Sultan's people, and
+knowing well the object of his being placed there was to prevent
+such things, he took particular note of both the slave and the
+serenader for many minutes, until at last, satisfied of the
+correctness of his surmise, he resolved to gain for himself some
+credit with his officer, by making an example of the venturesome
+boatman, whoever he might be.
+
+Where the sentinel stood, as we have said, he could command a
+perfect view of the spot from whence the song came, and also discern
+the serenader himself. He saw him, too, pull the little egg-shell
+caique in which he sat still nearer the wall of the seraglio. Komel,
+too, had observed the guard, and now perceived that it was evident
+by his actions that he saw some tangible form from whence came that
+dear song; and as she saw him deliberately raise and aim his carbine
+towards that direction, she could not suppress an involuntary scream
+as she beheld the Turkish guard preparing to shoot probably some
+native of her own dear valley.
+
+There had been another though silent observer of this scene, and as
+he heard the cry from Komel's lips, he dropped himself from the tree
+under which the sentry stood, right upon his shoulders, bearing him
+to the ground, while the contents of the carbine were cast into the
+air harmlessly. The half-witted boy had destroyed the aim, and the
+alarm given by the report of his carbine enabled the boatman,
+whoever he was, to make good his escape at once. The enraged guard
+turned to vent his anger upon the cause of his failure to kill the
+boatman, but when he beheld the half-witted being gazing up at the
+stars as unconcernedly as though nothing had happened, he remembered
+that the person of the boy was sacred.
+
+With a suppressed oath the guard resumed his weapon, and paced along
+the path that formed his post.
+
+As soon as the excitement attendant upon the scene we have related
+had subsided, Komel once more turned in wonder to recall those sweet
+notes, so endeared to her by a thousand associations, and to wonder
+from whom and whence they came. Was it possible that some dear
+friend from home had discovered her prison, her gilded cage, and
+that those notes were intended for her ear, or had the singer, by
+some miraculous chance, come hither and uttered those notes
+thoughtlessly? Thus conjecturing and surmising, Komel scarcely
+closed her eyes all night, and when she did so, it was to live over
+in her dreams the scenes we have referred to, and to seem to hear
+once more those thrilling and tender notes of her far off home. Then
+she seemed once more to behold the Turk taking his deadly aim, and
+the idiot boy dropping from the tree to frustrate his murderous
+intention, and throwing the guard by his weight to the ground; and
+then the imaginary report of the carbine would again arouse her, to
+fall asleep and dream once more.
+
+During the whole of the day that followed she could think of nothing
+but that strange serenade; she even thought of the possibility of
+her father having traced her hither, and sung that song to ascertain
+if she were there, and then she wondered that she had not thought on
+time instant to reply to it, and resolved on the subsequent evening
+to watch if the song should be repeated, resolving that if this was
+the case, to respond to its notes come from whom they might. And
+with this purpose, a little before the same hour, she repaired
+thither with her light guitar hung by a silken cord by her neck.
+
+But in vain did she listen and watch for the song to be repeated.
+All was still on those beautiful waters, and no sound came upon the
+ear save the distant burst of delirious mirth from some opium shop
+where the frequenters had reached a state of wild and noisy
+hilarity, under the influence of the intoxicating drug. The
+half-witted boy seemed to comprehend her wishes, and already with a
+leap that would have done credit to a greyhound, had thrown himself
+on the top of the seraglio wall on the sea side, and sat there,
+watching first Komel, and then the water beneath the point.
+
+Despairing at last of again hearing the song, she lightly struck the
+strings of her guitar, and thus accompanied, sung the song that she
+had heard the previous night. The boy recognized the first note of
+the air, and springing to his feet, peered off into the shadows upon
+the water, supposing they came from thence; but seeing by a glance
+that it was the slave who sung, he dropped from the wall and crept
+quietly to her side. Before the song was ended he lay down at her
+feet in a state apparently of dormancy, though his eyes, peering
+from beneath one of his arms, were fixed upon a cluster of stars
+that shone the heavens above him.
+
+The bell from an English man-of-war that lay but an arrow's shot
+off, had sounded the middle watch before Komel left the spot where
+she had hoped once more to hear those to her enchanting sounds. She
+arose and walked away with reluctant steps from the place towards
+the palace, leaving the idiot boy by himself. But scarcely had she
+gone from sight, before he jumped to his feet, leaped once more to
+the top of the wall, looked off with apparent earnestness among the
+shipping and along the shore of the sparkling waters, where the moon
+lay in long rays of silver light upon it, and then dropping once
+more to the ground, came to the spot where Komel had sat, and lying
+down there, slept, or seemed to do so.
+
+Here Komel came night after night, but the song was no more
+repeated. Either the sentry's shot had effectually frightened away
+the serenader, or else he had not come hither with any fixed object
+connected with his song. In either case the poor girl felt unhappy
+and disappointed in the matter, and her companions saw a cloud of
+care upon her fair face. The Sultan, too, marked this, and seemed to
+wonder that time did not heal the wounded spirit of his slave. His
+kindly endeavors to please and render her content bore no fruit of
+success. She avoided him now; the feeling of gratitude that she had
+at first entertained towards him, had given way to one of deep but
+silent hatred.
+
+The monarch could read as much in her face whenever they chanced to
+meet, and the feelings of tenderness which he had entertained for
+her were also changing, and he felt that he should soon exercise the
+right of a master if he could make no impression upon the beautiful
+Circassian as a lover.
+
+"You treat me with coldness, Komel," he said to her, reproachfully.
+
+"Our actions are only truthful when they speak the language of the
+heart," replied she.
+
+"You forget my forbearance."
+
+"I forget nothing, but remember constantly too much," she replied.
+
+"It may be, Komel, that you do not remember on thing, which it is
+necessary to recall to you mind. You are my slave!"
+
+Leaving the Sultan and his household, we will turn once more to
+Capt. Selim, and see with what success he treated his fair patient,
+the old Bey's daughter, in his assumed character of a Jewish leech.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE ELOPEMENT.
+
+
+
+
+
+The palace of the old Bey, Zillah's father, was one of those gilded,
+pagoda-like buildings, which, in any other climate or any other spot
+in the wide world, would have looked foolish, from its profusion of
+latticed external ornaments, and the filagree work that covered
+every angle and point, more after the fashion of a child's toy than
+the work most appropriate for a dwelling house. But here, on the
+banks of the Bosphorus, in sight of Constantinople, and within the
+dominion of that oriental people, it was appropriate in every
+belonging, and seemed just what a Turkish palace should be.
+
+The building extended so over the water that its owner could drop at
+once into his caique and be pulled to almost any part of the city,
+and, like all the people who live along the river's banks, he was
+much on its surface. Coiled away, a la Turk, with his pipe well
+supplied, a pull either to the Black Sea, or that of Marmora, with a
+dozen stout oarsmen, was a delightful way of passing an afternoon,
+returning as the twilight hour settled over the scene.
+
+It was perhaps a week subsequent to the time when Selim and Zillah
+met at the Bey's house, availing himself of the liberty so fully
+extended by her father, Selim, in his disguise as a Jew, again
+appeared at the palace gate, where he was received with a request
+and consideration that showed to him he was expected, and at his
+request he was conducted to the Bey's presence, and by him, again to
+the apartment where his daughter was reposing.--The pretended Jew
+followed his guide with the most profound sobriety, handling sundry
+vials and jars he had brought with him, and upon which the Bey
+looked with not a little interest and respect, as he strove to
+decipher the cabalistic lines on each.
+
+"Have you found any improvement in the malady that affects your
+child?" asked the Jew, pouring a part of the contents of one vial
+into another, and holding it up against the light, exhibiting a
+phosphorescent action in the vial.
+
+"By the beard of the prophet, yes; a marked and potent change has
+your wonderful medicines produced. But what use do you make of that
+strange compound that looks like liquid fire?"
+
+"'Tis a strange compound," answered the other, seeming to regard the
+mixture with profound interest; "very strange. Perhaps you would
+hardly believe it, but the contents of that vial cast into the
+Bosphorus, would kill every fish below your latticed windows to the
+Dardanelles."
+
+"Allah Akbar!" exclaimed the credulous Turk, holding up both hands.
+"And this medicine, so powerful, do you intend for one so delicate
+as she?" he asked, pointing to Zillah, who was reclining upon a pile
+of cushions.
+
+"I do; but with that judicious, care that forms the art of our
+profession. So peculiar is the means that I shall operate with
+to-night, that should it harm her, it would equally affect me. But I
+have studied her case well, and you will find when yonder fair moon
+now rising from behind the hills of Scutari shall sink again to
+rest, your daughter will be well."
+
+"Then will I stop and watch the wonderful operation of thy drugs."
+
+"Nay, they must be applied in the open air and beneath the moon's
+rays, with none to observe, save the stars."
+
+"Then may the Prophet protect you. I will leave my child in your
+care. Shall I do this, Zillah?"
+
+"Father, yes, with thy blessing first," said the fair girl; for well
+she knew, that the medicine which was to cure her, would carry her
+away from his side and her childhood home, perhaps forever.
+
+The Bey pressed his lips to her forehead, and with a curious glance
+at the strange jars and vials, which the pretended Jew had
+displayed, he turned away and left them together.
+
+"Ah, dearest Zillah," said Selim, as soon as he found himself alone
+with her he loved, "all is prepared as I promised thee, and at
+midnight we will leave this palace forever."
+
+"Alas! dear Selim, my heart is ever with thee, but it is very sad to
+turn away from these scenes among which I have grown up from
+infancy; but full well I know I can never be thine otherwise."
+
+"In time your father will be reconciled to us both, Zillah, and then
+we may return again," said the disguised lover, striving to
+re-assure the gentle girl, whose heart almost failed her.
+
+"But what a fearful risk you incur even now," she said; "your
+disguise once discovered, Selim, and to-morrow's sun would never
+shine upon you; your life would be forfeited."
+
+"Fear not for me, dearest. I am well versed in the part I am to
+play. But come, it is already time for us to walk forth in the
+moonlight. Clothe thyself thoughtfully, Zillah, for your dress must
+be such as will suffice you for many days, since we must fly far
+away over the sea, beyond the reach of pursuit."
+
+"I will be thoughtful," answered the gentle girl, retiring a few
+moments from his side.
+
+They wandered on among the fairy-like scenes of the garden, where
+the trees overhung the Bosphorus, repeating once more the story of
+their love, and renewing those oft-repeated promises of eternal
+fidelity, until nearly midnight, when Selim suddenly started as he
+heard the low, muffled sound of oars. He paused but for a moment,
+then hastily seizing upon Zillah's arm, he urged her to follow him
+quickly to the water's edge. Throwing a heavy, long military cloak
+about her, he completely screened her from all eyes, and placing her
+in the stern of the boat that came for him, with a wave of the hand
+he bade his men give way, while he steered the caique towards a
+craft that lay up the river towards the city, and soon disappeared
+among the forest of masts and shipping that lay at anchor off
+Seraglio Point.
+
+They had made good their escape at least for the present, and were
+safe on board the ship commanded by Captain Selim. The very boldness
+of his scheme would prevent him from being discovered, and neither
+feared that the ship of the Sultan would be searched at any event,
+to find the lost daughter of the old Bey.
+
+On the subsequent day the old Bey summoned his royal master to
+assist him to find his child. The Armenian doctor, who recommended
+the pretended Jew, was called upon to explain matters, but, to the
+astonishment of the Turk, he denied in toto any knowledge of what he
+referred to, declared before the Sultan that he had neither offered
+to send any one to the Bey's house, nor had he done so, nor did he
+know a single Jewish leech in the capital.
+
+Confounded at such a flat contradiction, and having not the least
+evidence to rebut it, the Turk was obliged to withdraw from the
+royal presence discomfited, while the Armenian doctor retired to his
+own dwelling, comforting himself, in the first place, if he had
+uttered a falsehood it was in a good cause; and next, that he held
+it no crime to deceive or to cheat an infidel, and ever one knows
+how little love exists between the Turks and Armenians, at
+Constantinople.
+
+The truth was that the Armenian had long known Selim, had taught him
+his religion, and, had instructed him much at various times in such
+matters as it behooved him to know, and which had placed him at an
+early age far above many others in the service, who had all sorts of
+favoritism to advance their interests. He knew of Selim's love for
+the old Bey's daughter, and when chance led the father to consult
+him about his child, the idea of sending Selim to his house, as he
+succeeded in doing, flashed across his mind, and he proposed it to
+the father, as we have seen.
+
+Selim's Armenian friend repaired on board his vessel as soon as he
+was released from the presence of the Sultan, upon the inquiry to
+which we have alluded. It would have gone hard with him had it not
+been that his skill in his profession had long since recommended him
+to the Sultan, in whose household he frequently appeared. Selim
+greeted him kindly, and told him he was indebted to him for his
+future happiness in life.
+
+"We have been so successful in this plan," said the Armenian, "that
+I have half a mind to try one of a similar, but far bolder
+character, if you will assist me."
+
+"With all my heart. What is it you propose?" asked Captain Selim.
+
+"In my visits to the Sultan's harem, I have more than once been
+brought--"
+
+"Is the attempt to be made upon the Sultan's harem?" interrupted
+Selim.
+
+"Be patient and hear my story."
+
+"I will, but this must be a bold business."
+
+"I say, in my visits to the Sultan's household, I have often been
+brought in contact with one whom I know to be very unhappy, and who
+is detained there against her will. She is queen, I think, not only
+of the harem, but also of its master's heart, her beauty and bearing
+being of surpassing loveliness. Her history, too, as far as I can
+learn, is one of romantic interest, and she pines to return to her
+home in Circassia, from whence she was violently torn. At first when
+she came here, I was called upon to treat her case, for she had
+lately recovered from some severe sickness, and I then saw how
+tenderly the Sultan regarded her. Well, at that time she was both
+deaf and dumb, but--"
+
+"Hold! do you say she was deaf and dumb?" asked Selim, as if he
+recalled some memory of the past.
+
+"I did."
+
+"Strange," mused the officer; "it must be the slave that I bid for
+in the market."
+
+And so indeed it was the same beautiful being who had so earnestly
+attracted him, as the reader will remember, when the Sultan's agent,
+Mustapha, overbid him in the bazaar.
+
+"You know her then?" asked the Armenian.
+
+"I think so; but go on."
+
+"Well, I am satisfied that she pines to be released, and from
+hearing her story, and tending her in a short illness, I have become
+deeply interested in her. You know, Selim, that I hate the Turks in
+my heart, and if I can by any means rob the Sultan of this girl, and
+restore her to her home, I would risk much to do so."
+
+"The very idea looks to me like an impossibility," answered the
+young officer.
+
+"Nothing is impossible where will and energy combine."
+
+"What is your plan?"
+
+"You have resolved to fly from here, you tell me at least, by
+to-morrow night."
+
+"Yes. I have purchased that skimmer of the waters, the Petrel, and I
+shall sail at that time with Zillah, for the Russian coast, or
+Trebizond on the south of the Black Sea."
+
+"Very good; now why not take this gentle slave of the Sultan's along
+with you?"
+
+"But how to get possession of her? that's the question," answered
+Selim.
+
+"You know I have free access to the palace, and could easily inform
+her of any plan for her release."
+
+"One half of the trouble is over then at once, if she will second
+your efforts."
+
+"Well, I will visit the harem this very day. I have good excuse for
+doing so, and will tell Komel--"
+
+"Komel!" interrupted Selim.
+
+"Yes, that it the slave's name; why, what makes you look so
+thoughtful?"
+
+"I do not know," said Selim; "the name sounded familiar to me at
+first, but go on."
+
+"Well, I will tell her what is proposed, and get her advice as to
+any mode that she may think best to adopt in regard to her
+escaping."
+
+"But do you think she would prefer to go with me to an uncertain
+home, to the luxury she enjoys?"
+
+"Of course you will take her to her home on the Circassian coast.
+That must be the understanding, and I will remunerate you for the
+extra trouble and expense."
+
+"Never!" said the officer, honestly. "These Turks have paid me well
+for my services, and I have already a purse heavy with gold, after
+purchasing the Petrel, and if need be, I can make her pay."
+
+"Have it as you will; it matters not to me, so that she reaches her
+home, and the Turk is foiled."
+
+"I am a rover myself, and the Circassian coast would suit me quite
+as well as any other for a season. From whence does she come?"
+
+"Anapa."
+
+"Anapa? that shall be my destination," said Selim, at once.
+
+"Hark! what is that?" asked the physician, turning to the back part
+of the cabin.
+
+"Nothing, but a young friend of mine; he's asleep, I think."
+
+"Asleep; why he's moving, and must have overheard us, I am sure."
+
+"No fear."
+
+"But what we have said is no more nor less than downright treason."
+
+"That's true."
+
+"And would cost us both our heads if it should be reported."
+
+"He wont report it if he has heard it; he bears the Sultan no
+good-will, I can assure you, for it is only a day or two since that
+he was sentenced to death by him for some trivial cause."
+
+"What was it?" asked the Armenian.
+
+"Getting a peep at some of his favorites, I believe, or some such
+affair."
+
+"Do you remember his name?" asked the Armenian, as the subject of
+this conversation came out of one of the state-rooms in the cabin,
+and approached them.
+
+"Yes; he is a Circassian, named Aphiz Adegah!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+
+Though to the Armenian physician the fact of Aphiz's being there was
+nothing remarkable, to the reader we must explain how such a
+circumstance could be possible after the scenes we have described;
+for it will be remembered that we left him at the moment he was sunk
+in the Bosphorus and left by the officers of the Sultan to drown.
+
+The fact was that the Circassian's sentence was more than usually
+peremptory and sudden, and he was taken at once from the place of
+confinement and borne away in the boat without his person being
+searched, or indeed any of the usual precautions in such cases being
+adopted to prevent accident or the escape of the prisoner. Aphiz
+submitted without resistance to be placed in the sack, preparatory
+to being cast into the sea, nor was he ignorant of the fate that was
+intended to be inflicted upon him, but some confident hope,
+nevertheless, seemed to support him at the time.
+
+The officers of the prison, not a little surprised at his quiet
+acquiescence to all their purposes, when all was prepared, cast him,
+as we have already described, into the sea, and quietly pulled away
+from the spot. But no sooner did Aphiz find himself immersed in the
+water than he commenced to cut the bag with his dagger, which he had
+concealed in his bosom, and as he sank deeper and deeper towards the
+bottom, quickly to release himself from the restraint of the heavy
+canvas bag and shot that bore him still down, down, to the fearful
+depth of the river's bed.
+
+Aphiz Adegah was born near the sea-shore, and from childhood had
+been accustomed to the freest exercise in the water. He was
+therefore an expert and well-practised swimmer, and after he had
+freed himself from the sack by the vigorous use of his dagger, he
+gradually rose again to the surface of the water, but taking good
+care to start away from the spot where he had been cast into the
+sea, that he might not be observed by those who had been sent there
+to execute the sentence of death upon him.
+
+Still starting away and swimming under water, he gradually rose to
+the surface far from the spot where he had first sunk, but after a
+breath, still fearing detection, he dove again, and deeper and
+deeper, sought to follow the current, until he should be beyond the
+possibility of discovery. What a volume of thoughts passed through
+his mind in the few seconds while he was descending in that fearful
+confinement of the sack, and how vigorously he worked with the edge
+of his dagger to cut an opening for escape, and when he drew that
+one long inspiration as he rose to the surface and instantly plunged
+again, what a relief it was to his aching lungs and overtasked
+powers! But, as we have said, he was a practised swimmer, knew well
+his powers, and confidently dove again into the depth of the waters.
+
+As he sank deeper and deeper in this second dive, he found himself
+suddenly losing all power and control over his body, and he felt as
+though some invisible arm had seized upon him, and he was being
+borne away he knew not whither. No effort of his was of the least
+avail, and on, on, he was borne, and round and round he was turned
+with the velocity of lightning, until he grew dizzy and faint, and
+the density of the waters, acting upon the drums of his ears, became
+almost insupportably painful, imparting a sensation as though the
+head was between two iron plates, and a screw was being turned which
+compressed it tighter and tighter every moment.
+
+Though he was in this situation not more than one minute, yet it
+seemed to him to be an hour of torture, so intense was the agony
+experienced; and yet it was beyond a doubt his salvation in the end,
+for he had by chance struck one of those violent undertows that
+prevail in all these fresh water inland seas, which defy all
+philosophical calculation, and which bore him with the speed of an
+arrow for two hundred rods far away from the spot where he had a
+second time sunk below the surface, until, as he once more rose to
+the surface, he found himself so far away from the boat that he
+could not possibly be recognized.
+
+Close by him he heard the strokes and saw the oars of a large
+man-of-war boat passing by the spot where he had risen from his
+fearful contest with the water. His first impulse was to dive once
+more, but his efforts with the current he had struck below had
+seemed to deprive him of the power of all further exertion. The
+shore was a quarter of a mile distant, and in his exhausted state,
+he doubted if it was possible for him to reach it. He gave a second
+look at the boat with longing eyes, his strength was momentarily
+failing him, he felt that he must either sink or call to those in
+the boat for assistance, and while he was thus debating in his own
+mind, he observed the person who had the helm steer the boat towards
+him, and in a moment after Aphiz was raised in the arms of the sea
+men and placed in the bottom of the caique.
+
+Scarcely had he been placed in this position when there commenced
+throughout his whole system such a combination of fearful and
+harrowing pains that he almost prayed that he might die, and be
+relieved from them. He had not the power left in his limbs to move
+one inch, and yet he felt as though he could roll and writhe all
+over the boat. The fact was that while exertion was necessary to
+preserve him from drowning, his instinct and mental faculties
+combined to support him, and enable the sufferer still to make an
+effort to preserve his life, but now that no exertion on his part
+could benefit himself, he was thrown back upon a realization of the
+consequent suffering induced by his exposure.
+
+The quantity of water he had swallowed pained him beyond measure,
+while the action of the dense water upon his brain, and the combined
+pains he was enduring, rendered him almost deranged. It is said that
+drowning is the easiest of deaths, but those who have recovered from
+a state nearly approaching actual death by submersion in the water,
+describe the sensations of recovery to consciousness to be beyond
+description, painful and terrible. Those who have for a moment
+fainted from some sudden cause have partially realized this misery
+in the anguish caused for an instant by the first breath that
+accompanies returning consciousness.
+
+All this proved too much for the young Circassian, and though
+removed from the immediate cause of danger he fainted with
+exhaustion. He who commanded the boat was also a young man, and
+seemed at once to be uncommonly interested in the stranger whom he
+had rescued from the sea. Neither he nor any of his men suspected
+how the half drowned man had come there, and adopting such means as
+his experience suggested, the officer of the boat soon again
+restored Aphiz to a state of painful consciousness. Realizing the
+kind efforts that were made for him, the young Circassian smiled
+through the trembling features of his face in acknowledgement.
+
+Signing to his men to give way with more speed, the officer soon
+moored along side one of the Sultan's sloops-of-war, and in a few
+moments after the half drowned man was placed in the best berth the
+cabin afforded.
+
+As to himself, Aphiz had only sufficient consciousness left to
+realize that he had been most miraculously save from a watery grave,
+but a bare thought of the suffering he had just passed through, was
+almost too much for him. And leaving chance to decide his future
+fate, he turned painfully in his cot and was soon lost in sleep.
+
+When the young Circassian awoke on the following morning he was once
+more quite himself, being thoroughly refreshed by the long hours he
+had slept. He thought over the last few days which had been so
+eventful to him, and wondered what fate was now in store for him.--Of
+course the generous conduct of Captain Selim, the Sultan's officer,
+who had rescued him from drowning, and then hospitably entertained
+him, was the most spontaneous action of a noble heart towards a
+fellow-being in distress, but if he should know by what means Aphiz
+had come in the situation which he had found him, would not his
+loyalty to the Sultan demand that he should at once render up the
+escaped prisoner once more to the executioner's hands?
+
+His true policy therefore seemed to be to keep his own secret, and
+this he resolved to do, but he had reasoned without knowing the
+character or feelings of him to whom he was so much indebted, as we
+shall see.
+
+Scarcely had he resolved the matter in his mind, as we have
+described, when Selim entered the cabin, and perceiving the
+refreshed and cheerful appearance of Aphiz, addressed him in a
+congratulatory tone.
+
+"I rejoice to see you so well."
+
+"Thanks to your prompt assistance and hospitality that I am not now
+at the bottom of the Bosphorus."
+
+"You were pretty close upon drowning, and must have been under water
+for some time, I should say."
+
+"I had indeed, and was very nearly exhausted," answered Aphiz.
+
+"But how came you in such a pitiable plight, what led you so far
+from the shore without a boat?"
+
+"I--that is to say--"
+
+"O, I see, some matter that you wish to keep a secret. Very well;
+far be it from me to ask aught of thee, or urge thee to reveal any
+matter that might compromise thy feelings."
+
+"Not so," answered Aphiz; "but were I to speak, I might criminate
+myself."
+
+"O, fear no such matter with me, were you an escaped prisoner from
+the law, I--"
+
+"What?" asked Aphiz, as he observed the young officer regarding him
+intently.
+
+"Why, I should not betray you again into the Sultan's power. I have
+no real sympathy with these Turks, and would much rather serve you,
+who seem to be a stranger, than them."
+
+"Thanks, a thousand thanks," answered Aphiz, warmly.
+
+"Therefore, confide in me, and if I can serve thee, I will do so at
+once."
+
+"I will," said Aphiz, who felt that the officer was honest in what
+he promised.
+
+Then he told him how he had been condemned by the Sultan, for some
+private enmity, to die, but he carefully observed the utmost secrecy
+as to what the actual motive of his punishment really was. He told
+how he had been borne in the execution boat to the usual spot for
+the execution of the sentence that had been pronounced upon him. How
+he had been confined in the sack and cast into the sea, describing
+his first sensations and his struggle with his dagger until he cut
+himself free from the terrible confinement of his canvas prison. How
+he had struggled beneath the element, and then of the fearful eddy
+into which he had been drawn, and finally how at last he rose to the
+surface near his own boat.
+
+That was all that Captain Selim knew of the matter, and after
+hearing that Aphiz was a Circassian, he supplied him with an undress
+uniform to further his disguise, and bade him welcome as his guest.
+Therefore when the Armenian doctor and Selim found that their
+conversation had been overheard by Aphiz, they neither feared his
+betraying him, nor suspected the deep interest that the young
+Circassian felt in the theme of their remarks.
+
+"You were speaking of a slave of the Sultan's harem, named Komel,"
+he said, approaching them.
+
+"We were; and perhaps have spoken too plainly of a purpose for her
+release from bondage," said the Armenian.
+
+"Why too freely?"
+
+"Because in a degree we have placed ourselves in your power, having
+spoken treason."
+
+"I care not whether it be treason or not," replied Aphiz; "it was
+such as answered to the feelings of my own heart in every word.
+Betray you! I will die to achieve the object you name."
+
+"This is singular," said Selim, surprised at his earnestness.
+
+"It would not seem so had I dared to tell you my story at first."
+
+"Then you know the girl?" asked the physician and Selim, in a
+breath.
+
+"Know her? I have been her playmate from childhood. We have loved
+and cherished each other until our very souls seemed blended into
+one."
+
+"Then how came she separated from you, and now in the Sultan's
+harem?" asked the Armenian.
+
+"Ay," continued Selim, "how was it that I saw her offered for sale
+in the public bazaar?"
+
+"Have patience with me and I will tell you all, of both her history
+and my own."
+
+Aphiz then related to them the story that is already familiar to the
+reader, and seeing that those with whom he had to deal were in no
+way particularly partial to the Sultan, he told word for word the
+whole truth, even from the hour when he had saved him from the
+Bedouins, to that when he had been cast into the sea.
+
+All this but the more incited both Selim and the Armenian to strive
+for Komel's release, and sitting there together, the trio strove how
+best they could manage the affair. The Armenian's possessing the
+entree to the palace was a matter of intense importance to the
+furtherance of the object, and whatever plan should be adopted it
+was agreed that he should seek the harem and communicate it to
+Komel, thus obtaining her aid in its execution.
+
+"Doubtless she thinks me dead," said Aphiz; "for the Sultan would
+take care to tell her that."
+
+"That's true, and so let her think, and we will manage an agreeable
+surprise for her."
+
+"As you will; but let us to this business this very night," said the
+impatient Aphiz.
+
+"That we will, and right heartily," said Selim, who hastened to his
+young wife to tell her that she was to have a dear, beautiful
+companion in their proposed voyage, and that she would be on board
+before the morning.
+
+Aphiz was now all impatience. He could scarcely wait for the hours
+to pass that should bring about the period allotted for the attempt
+to release her whom he so fondly, and until now so hopelessly,
+loved. In the meantime the good Armenian physician, with redoubled
+interest, now that he had learned Aphiz's story, sought the Sultan's
+harem, where he quietly broached to Komel the plan that had been
+agreed upon whereby she should be transported once more to her
+distant home and the scenes of her childhood.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ESCAPE FROM THE HAREM.
+
+
+
+
+
+On one of those soft and glorious nights such as occur so often
+beneath the eastern skies, when there was no moon and yet a blaze of
+light pouring down from the myriad of bright stars, that one would
+not have missed the absence of the Queen of Night; the walks of the
+Sultan's gardens, fragrant with flowers and sweet blossoms, were
+drinking in of the dewy hour, still and silently, save at the point
+where we once before introduced the person of Komel. The spot from
+whence she had listened to that tender and dearly loved song of her
+native valley, and nearly in the same place she sat now, again
+evidently listening and expecting the coming of some person or
+preconcerted signal.
+
+On the extended branch of the nearest cypress hung the half-witted
+boy by one arm, which he had cast over the limb, and from whence he
+was now oscillating like a pendulum, his head hanging down upon his
+breast, and the rest of his limbs as moveless seemingly, as though
+he had hung there for months. It was one of the queer odd freaks
+that he was so often performing, for what purpose no one knew, and
+there he hung still, while the slave listened and cast anxious
+glances at the stone wall that forms the sea side of the seraglio
+gardens.
+
+But no sound greeted her ears save the never ceasing babbling of the
+fountains, and now and then the soft plaintive cry of some night
+bird that, wakeful while most of the species slept, warbled its
+notes to the stars. Once she thought she heard the muffled sound of
+oars, and started to her feet, but the noise soon died away in the
+distance, and she relapsed again into the same attitude of impatient
+and anxious anticipation. Out from under the apparently drooping and
+senseless eyelids of the idiot, a quick thoughtful glance was turned
+upon her at every motion she made, but she knew it not, nor did she
+turn towards the boy at all, while he still swung steadily as though
+he had been bound by cords to the tree.
+
+Once more she started, but it was a false alarm. The notes she had
+heard were those of an instrument, played by some favorite of the
+harem, who looked forth upon the night scene, and coupled its charms
+with the notes of her lute.--But this too soon died away, and again
+Komel breathed quick and anxiously as she sat there at midnight. The
+guard on his rounds came past now, and she assumed a quiet and
+careless air to avoid notice, while a soldier cast a wondering eye
+at the idiot boy, and then strode on, with the barrel of his carbine
+resting lazily in the hollow of his arm.
+
+At this moment there swelled forth upon the night air the note of
+that well remembered song. It was the preconcerted signal, and
+springing to her feet, Komel stole quickly to that part of the
+seraglio wall nearest the water. The idiot boy seemed to comprehend
+the movement instantly, and to recognize the notes that he had heard
+once before, and which had so affected the beautiful Circassian, nor
+had she fairly reached the wall before he was close by her side. She
+paused for a moment to smile kindly upon him and place her hand upon
+his head, then turned to listen again.
+
+The boy appeared to understand that something extraordinary was
+going on, and became as nervous as possible. Now he darted off
+towards the path where the sentinel had disappeared, and now came
+back with a step as fleet as a deer, and as noiseless as a cat's.
+But the scene soon changed by the appearance, above the wall, of the
+head of Captain Selim, who, peering carefully around for a moment,
+asked in a whispered tone:
+
+"Lady, lady, are you there?"
+
+"I am," replied Komel, cautiously, while the idiot crowded close to
+her side.
+
+"If I throw over this rope ladder, will you mount now to the top of
+the wall?"
+
+"Yes, O yes; let me get away from here quickly."
+
+"Step away from the wall then for a moment," said the young officer,
+and in an instant after a rope ladder made fast on the outer side,
+was cast over to her.
+
+"Are you ready, lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then come quickly; don't pause for a moment in the ascent, lest you
+be seen."
+
+Komel thinking of nothing but release from her confinement in the
+Sultan's household, and seeing in perspective her home and parents,
+for the Armenian had promised that she should be taken thither,
+sprang lightly up the tiny, but strong ladder of cord, and was soon
+on the other side, the boy creeping after as she went. But just as
+she had passed over the top and was descending on the other side,
+leaving the idiot boy on the top beside of the young officer, who
+stood so that his neck and head were above the level of the summit
+of the wall, the sentinel again came down the path in sight of the
+place and instantly discovered the whole affair, running with all
+speed to the spot. The soldier dropped his carbine to seize and
+detain the ladder, when a struggle ensued between him and the young
+officer for its possession.
+
+At this critical moment, the soldier seeming to recollect himself,
+turned to raise his gun, either to shoot Selim or give the alarm; in
+either case it would be equally fatal to the success of their
+design. The boy had maintained his position during the brief
+struggle, but the moment the guard turned to recover his carbine,
+the half witted creature leaped from his high position directly upon
+his back and neck and bore him to the ground. The weight of the
+boy's body was sufficient to bring the soldier to the ground with
+stunning effect and leave him nearly insensible.
+
+Had this not been the case the boy's finger clutched the throat with
+the power of a vice and the guard was as insensible as a dead man.
+In the mean time, the young officer scarcely knowing what to make of
+the opportune and sudden interference in his favor, drew up the
+ladder on the other side and prepared to follow Komel, who was
+already hurried by the Armenian nearly to the side of the boat that
+waited there, and in the stern of which sat another person in charge
+of the same. Komel looked back as she was joined by Captain Selim,
+and asked:
+
+"Where is the boy?"
+
+"What boy?" said the Armenian, ignorant as to whom they referred.
+
+"The half-witted pet of the Sultan's."
+
+"I left him in the grounds," said Selim.--"The guard passed over the
+ladder, but just as he was about to discharge his carbine, that boy
+sprang upon him like a tiger, and I think he must have killed him,
+for I saw the soldier lying on the ground insensible."
+
+"That boy has been my best friend, I cannot bear to leave him."
+
+"It would be madness to stop for anything now," replied the young
+officer; and so they passed around to the spot where the boat was in
+waiting, moored closed to the shore.
+
+But let us look back for a moment at the scene on the other side of
+the seraglio wall where we left the guard overcome by the boy. The
+poor half witted child sat close beside the body, which was
+perfectly inanimate. Now he looked up at the bright stars for an
+instant, now at the still features of the guardsman, and then at the
+spot where the slave had disappeared over the wall. His movements
+were nervous and irregular, and he seemed to be trying to understand
+something or to make up his mind upon some thought that had stolen
+into his brain.
+
+Suddenly he lifted his head, his eyes glowed like fire, and his
+chest heaved like a woman's.--He scanned the wall for an instant,
+then turning, retreated a few yards towards the centre of the
+grounds. With a short start and a wild bound he was upon its top!
+another leap carried him to the ground, and with the speed of a
+horse he ran to the water's edge, just in time for Komel to stretch
+out her hand and draw him on board the boat. He who sat in the stern
+was muffled up, and his face could not be seen, but he started to
+his feet at what seemed to him to be an intrusion; but a sign from
+the Armenian put all to rights, and the boy coiled himself up like a
+piece of rope at the feet of the fair girl.
+
+Time was precious to them now, and Selim seizing one oar, the
+Armenian pulled with another, while he in the stern steered the
+caique quietly beneath the shade of the shore for some distance,
+when her course was suddenly altered, and striking boldly across the
+harbor, it was soon lost among the shipping at anchor.
+
+A little adroitness, with cool courage, will often put all
+calculations at fault, and thus had the plan for Komel's release
+proved perfectly successful; thus had the Sultan been robbed of his
+favorite slave from out the very walls that encircled his palace
+grounds in spite of all his supposed security. Though it was very
+plain that the whole affair came very near miscarrying at the time
+when the guard appeared, and would perhaps have done so had the
+fellow understood his duty and fired a shot at once, thus if not
+shooting those engaged in this depredation upon the Sultan's
+household, at least giving an alarm that would probably have
+resulted in the arrest of all the parties concerned. But thanks to
+the bravery and skill of the poor half-witted boy, all had gone
+safely through, and now Komel found herself seated with the
+beautiful Zillah in Selim's cabin, safe from all harm.
+
+"So," said the Armenian, drawing a long breath after the unusual
+exertion he had just experienced, "all is safe thus far. Now we must
+expedite matters for you to embark in your own craft at once, and in
+the mean time keep every thing close, especially the boy. He seems
+so devoted to the girl that it would be too bad to part them, but if
+he should be seen by any one he will be remembered, and it may lead
+to detection at once."
+
+"That is true," answered Selim; "but we have got all on board
+without being observed even by the anchor watch."
+
+"The Sultan will leave no means untried to detect the thief who has
+stolen his fairest jewel," said the Armenian, "and his reward will
+be so rich as to tempt the cupidity of every one, therefore be
+cautious and trust none."
+
+"I will not. At midnight to-morrow we must be on board the Petrel,
+and at the most quiet moment slip her cable and drop quietly down
+the coast with the night breeze, and if every thing is propitious,
+we can get well away in the Black Sea before anything will be
+suspected of us, and pursuit instituted."
+
+"I shall feel the utmost anxiety until you are fairly away," said
+the Armenian.
+
+"We owe much to you," replied Selim.
+
+Thus saying, the Armenian and Selim entered the cabin together,
+where Zillah and Komel sat listening to each other's stories, and
+fast coming to know each other better and better. Suddenly Komel
+turned to Selim, and after acknowledging how much she already owed
+him and the Armenian, said--
+
+"There is one thing I meant to have asked you before."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Who was it that sang that song beneath the seraglio walls?"
+
+"The same notes that formed our signal to-night?" asked Selim.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"O, that was a young Circassian, who is on board here," was the
+answer.
+
+"But judging from the song he sang, he must be from my native
+valley."
+
+"Was it familiar to you?"
+
+"As my mother's voice," answered Komel, with feeling. "It is a song
+that one most dear to me has sung to me many a time, and when a few
+nights since I heard it, I would have declared that it was his voice
+again; but I knew him to be gone to a better land; the Sultan took
+his life, alas! on my own account."
+
+The Armenian looked at Selim, as much as to say, now for the
+surprise, while the young officer seemed hesitating as to what he
+should do next, when a noise was heard at the entrance of the cabin,
+and in a moment after, he who had steered the boat, slipped within
+and threw off the outer garment that had muffled him. All eyes were
+turned upon him as he stood for a moment, when Komel exclaimed,
+trembling as she said so:
+
+"Is this a miracle, or do my eyes deceive me? that is--is--"
+
+"Aphiz Adegah," said the Armenian, while an honest tear wet his
+cheek.
+
+"Komel!" murmured the young mountaineer, as he pressed her trembling
+form to his breast.
+
+All there knew their story, and could appreciate their feelings,
+while not a word was spoken, to break the spell of so joyous a
+meeting, the joy of such unhoped for bliss.
+
+"The Sultan then deceived me," said Komel, suddenly recovering her
+voice.
+
+"He was himself deceived, and thinks me dead," replied Aphiz; "my
+escape was miraculous."
+
+"O, let us away at once from here," said Komel, anxiously; "the
+Sultan's agent will surely trace us, and I should die to go back to
+his harem again. Cannot we go at once?"
+
+"Nay, have patience, my dear girl," said the Armenian, "our plans
+have been carefully laid, and we shall hardly run a single risk of
+detection or discovery if they are adhered to."
+
+All this while, the half-witted boy lay coiled up in one corner of
+the cabin unseen, but himself noticing every movement that
+transpired, until as they all settled more quietly to a realizing
+sense of their relative positions, when Komel seeking him brought
+him to Aphiz, and told him how much she owed the poor boy for
+kindness rendered to her, and even that he had saved her life once,
+if not a second time, by his mastering the guard.
+
+While the boy looked upon Komel as she spoke, his fine eye glowed
+with warmth and expression, but when Aphiz took his hand, and he
+turned towards him, that light was gone, like the fire from a seared
+coal, and the optics of the idiot were cold and expressionless.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE CHASE.
+
+
+
+
+
+The reader will remember the fleet and beautiful slaver mentioned in
+an early chapter, when lying off the port of Anapa. The same clipper
+craft that had conveyed Komel away from her native shores, was
+destined, singularly enough, to carry her back again, for this was
+the vessel Selim had secretly purchased and prepared for his escape
+with his companions from the domain of the Sultan. He was too good a
+seaman not to manage affairs shrewdly, and though the coming night
+was the one on which he had resolved to sail, yet the schooner
+floated as lazily as ever at her moorings. The sails were closely
+trailed, and the ropes and sheets coiled away as though they would
+not be used for months again.
+
+But could one have looked on board beneath her hatches, and out of
+sight of the crowded shipping in the bay, he might have counted a
+dozen stalwart youths, in the Greek costume, busily employed in
+getting everything ready below for a quick run, and as the shadows
+deepened over the Oriental scene, and the sun had fairly sunk to
+rest behind the lofty summit of Bulgurlu, one or two of the crew
+might have been seen quietly engaged here and there on deck, but
+their lazy, indolent movements, rather speaking of a long stay at
+their present anchorage than an idea of an early departure, and yet
+a true seaman would have observed that they were loosing everything,
+in place of making fast.
+
+It was nearly midnight when Selim and his party, headed by Aphiz,
+left his own ship in a small caique, and quietly pulled with muffled
+oars, to the side of the schooner, which they boarded without
+hailing. She had been moored the day previous without the outermost
+of the shipping, and scarcely had the party got fairly on board,
+when she slipped her cable, and showing the cap of her fore-topsail
+to the gentle night air that set over the plains of Belgrade and
+down the Valley of Sweet Waters, gradually floated away, until by
+hoisting a few rings of the flying jib, her bows were brought round,
+and she slipped off towards the Black Sea unnoticed.
+
+Not so much as the creaking of a block had been permitted to disturb
+the stillness, and now, when Capt. Selim felt too impatient not to
+make the most of the favorable land breeze, only the light jigger
+sail that was set so well aft as to reach far over the taffrail, was
+unfurled easily and dropped into its place, swelling away
+noiselessly. As impatient as he felt, he wished to skirt those
+shores silently, and resolved to take every precaution that would
+prevent a suspicion of the real hurry and anxiety that he felt
+from evincing itself.
+
+The cutter hugged the Bithynian shore until it had passed that
+rendezvous for the caravans from Armenia and Persia, the favorite
+city of Scutari, and then it gradually approached the sea, its
+mainsail, foresail and topsails were spread, and before the first
+gray of morning broke over the horizon of the sea, the cutter had
+almost lost sight of the continent of Europe, and was swiftly
+ploughing the waves of the great inland ocean. Classic waters!
+laving the shores of Turkish Europe, Asia Minor, the broad coast of
+Russia, and that ancient island of Crimea, and finally washing the
+mountain coast of Circassia and Abrasia.
+
+One of those short cross seas to which inland waters are so liable,
+was running at the time, and there were evidences, too, of foul
+weather, for the wind that sets from the north-east for
+three-fourths of the season in these waters, had hauled more
+westerly, and dark, ominous looking clouds obstructed the light of
+the sun as it rose from the horizon. The wind came in sudden and
+unequal gusts, now causing the clipper to careen till her topsail
+yards almost dipped, and then permitting her to rise once more to
+the upright position. Capt. Selim noted these signs well, for he
+knew the character of these waters, and that these signs
+prognosticated no favorable coming weather. His sails were first
+reefed, then close reefed, and finally furled altogether, save a
+fore-staysail, and the mainsail reduced to its smallest reef points.
+
+While the clipper was scudding under this sail, a close lookout was
+kept in her wake, for Selim knew very well that at farthest his
+absence would only be concealed until the morning gun should fire,
+when the fleetest ship in the Sultan's navy would be dispatched to
+overtake him. And this was indeed the case, for just at this moment
+there came to his side a young Greek, who acted as his first
+officer, and pointing away astern in the south-western board, said:
+
+"There is a man-of-war, sir, standing right in our wake hereaway."
+
+"You are right--we are discovered, too, for he steers like a hawk on
+the wing about to dive for its prey."
+
+"He is close handed, sir, while we are running nearly free."
+
+"Then he has not yet made out the schooner's bearings; keep her as
+she is."
+
+Watching the frigate, Selim still held on his course steadily, but
+the size of the enemy enabled her to carry twice the amount of
+canvass in proportion to her tonnage that he dared to do. Indeed, he
+felt the fleet craft under his feet tremble beneath the force with
+which she was driven through the water even now. As the morning
+advanced, the frigate gained fast upon them, until at the suggestion
+of Aphiz, the foresail, close reefed, was put upon the schooner, but
+quickly taken in again. It was too evident that the gale was
+increasing, as the bows of the schooner were every other minute
+quite under water, then she would rise on the next wave to shake the
+spray from her prow and side like a living creature, then boldly
+dash forward again.
+
+"That fellow is in earnest," said Selim to Aphiz, "and is determined
+to have us, cost what it may. See, there goes his fore-to-gallant
+sail clear out of the belt ropes. Heaven send he may carry away a
+few more of sails, for he is overhauling us altogether too fast for
+my liking."
+
+"There goes a gun," said Aphiz.
+
+"Ay, fire away, my hearties," said Selim, "you lose a little with
+every recoil of that gun, and you can't reach us with anything that
+carries powder in the Sultan's navy--I know your points."
+
+"That shot struck a mile astern of us," said Aphiz.
+
+"Yes, and at the present rate, it will take him nearly two hours to
+overhaul us; but by that time, if the gale goes on increasing in
+this style, he must take in his canvass or lose his masts over the
+side."
+
+Selim was right, the fury of the gale did increase, and he soon saw
+the frigate furl sail after sail for her own security, and yet she
+seemed under nearly bare poles to gain slowly on the schooner, and
+was now ranging within long shot distance, and commenced now and
+then to fire from her bow ports. But gunner, ever uncertain on the
+water, is doubly so in a gale, and nearly all her shot were thrown
+away, one now and then hitting the clipper, and causing a shower of
+splinters to fly into the air as though the spray had broken over
+the spot.
+
+Chance did that for the frigate which all the skill of its gunner
+could not have done, and a shot aimed at her running gear took a
+slant upon the wave, and entered her side below the water line,
+causing a leak that was not discovered until it was too late to
+attempt its stoppage, and the schooner was slowly settling into the
+sea.
+
+In the meantime the gale had reached its height, and the frigate,
+too intent on her own business, had long since ceased firing, and
+had dashed by the clipper like a race-horse, with everything lashed
+to the her decks and battened down. And now, when Selim discovered
+the extent of the danger, and realized that ere long the schooner
+must sink, he almost wished that the frigate, which had gone out of
+sight far down to leeward, might be seen once more.
+
+Already had the schooner leaked so fast as to drive the occupants
+from the cabin to the quarter deck, and here, gathered in a small
+group, they looked at each other in silence, for death seemed
+inevitable.
+
+"O, Selim! must we perish?" whispered his young and lovely Zillah.
+
+"Dearest, I trust we may yet be saved. The gale will ere long
+subside, and even now we are drifting towards the very coast that we
+should have steered for had all been well with us."
+
+This was so. The clipper, though gradually settling deeper and
+deeper into the sea, was yet propelled before the breeze by all the
+canvass that it was deemed prudent to place upon her, right towards
+the Circassian coast, at a rate perhaps of from four to five knots.
+The gale, too, now gradually subsided, and enabled the half-wrecked
+people to take more comfortable positions, and Aphiz and Selim to
+prepare a raft with the assistance of the crew, for it was but too
+apparent that the schooner must go down before long. Hollow groaning
+sounds issued from the hatches as she settled lower and lower, and
+it really seemed as though the fabric was uttering exclamations of
+pain at its untimely fate.
+
+By unbinding and loosing the fore and main yards, a foundation was
+made by lashing these spars together, upon which other timbers and
+wood work was fastened, and in a few hours a broad and comparatively
+comfortable raft was formed. But how to launch it? That was beyond
+the power of all those on board united. To wait until the time when
+the water should float it from the deck, would be to run the risk of
+being engulfed with the schooner, and being drawn into the vortex of
+water that would follow her going down, and thus meet a sure and
+swift destruction.
+
+But this was now their only hope, and the only means offering itself
+for their escape, since the stern and quarter boats had been lost or
+stove in the course of the late gale, and so making a virtue of
+necessity, they all gathered upon the centre of the raft that had
+been thus hastily constructed, and awaited their fate. Aphiz and
+Selim bound their respective charges to the raft by cords about
+their bodies, to prevent the possibility of their being washed from
+its unprotected flooring.
+
+Already the water washed over their very feet, and now and then the
+schooner gave a fearful lurch, that caused all hands to stand fast
+and believe her going down. Gradually the water crept higher and
+higher, and the plunging schooner seemed at every fall of her bows
+to be going down. Even the gentle Komel and Zillah could understand
+the fearful momentary danger that must ensue when the hull should
+plunge at last, and they silently held each other's hands.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried one of the crew, at the top of his voice.
+
+"What now?" demanded Selim sternly of the man, at his seemingly
+untimely mirth.
+
+"She floats, she floats--the raft's afloat."
+
+"Then in the name of Heaven, shove off as quickly as possible," said
+Selim, as he and Aphiz seize each an oar and strove to force the
+raft away from the deck. A way had already been cut through the
+bulwarks.
+
+At first the raft did not stir, but gradually it slid away, and
+finally, to the joy of all, it was free and clear of the schooner's
+side, and by the strong efforts of the crew, they increased the
+space between them in a very few moments to the distance of several
+rods. It was not one moment too soon, for a deep gurgling sound rang
+on the ear for a moment, then the stern rose above the surface of
+the sea as the bows plunged, and in a moment after she was gone
+forever.
+
+Even at a distance they had already gained, they felt the power of
+the vortex, and were drawn towards its brink with fearful velocity,
+as though they had been a mere feather floating upon the sea, but
+gradually the raft became once more steady, and as the twilight
+settled over the scene the whole party knelt in prayer for
+protection upon that wide, unbroken waste of waters.
+
+They had taken the precaution to secure some food, though in a
+damaged state, and partaking sparingly of this as the moon lit up
+the wild scene, and the sea went down after its turmoil and tempest,
+they arranged themselves to sleep, Komel and Zillah close by each
+other's side, and the poor idiot boy coiled himself silently at
+their feet. He had been uncomplaining and watchful ever since the
+calamity, but had kept closer than ever to Komel's side, who, even
+in those moments of fearful trial, found time to bestow upon the boy
+looks and words of kind assurance,--that was enough--he seemed happy.
+
+All the day and another night were passed thus. The fearful gale had
+cleared the sea of navigators, who had not yet ventured out from
+their safe anchorage, and still the raft drove on, aided by a little
+jury mast and the fore-topsail of the schooner, which had been
+hastily unbent and placed on the raft. Hunger had attacked them, for
+the provisions they had saved were now all gone, and this, added to
+the exposure they suffered, caused many a blanched cheek, and Komel
+and Zillah seemed ready to give way under the trial.
+
+It was at the dawn of the third day that their eyes were gladdened
+by the distant hills of Abrasia, and soon after they neared the
+coast so as to make out its headlands, when a favoring wind, as if
+on purpose to speed them on their way, came over the Georgian hills
+from the south-east, and blew them towards the north.
+
+Aphiz was now in a region that he knew well the navigation of, and
+he declared that with the wind holding thus for a few hours, they
+would be off the port of Anapa as safely as a steamboat might carry
+them.
+
+This was indeed the case, and before many hours the well known hills
+and headlands of Circassia were visible to their longing eyes. Komel
+could not suppress the joyous burst of feeling that a sight of her
+native hills again infused into her bosom, but forgetting each pain
+and trouble, she pointed out first to Zillah, then to Aphiz, and
+even to the idiot boy, a beauty here, a well known spot there, and
+the hill behind which stood the cottage of her dear parents. O, how
+she trembled with impatient joy to reach its door once more.
+
+Under the skilful guidance of Aphiz and Selim, the raft was steered
+into the harbor, and was soon surrounded by a score of boats,
+offering their ready assistance to relieve their distresses, and a
+short time after saw them landed safely, all upon the long,
+projecting mole.
+
+All the while Selim seemed thoughtful and absent, and looked about
+him with strange interest, at everything that met his gaze. He even
+forgot to seek the side of Zillah, who, with Komel, was hurrying
+away to a conveyance up the mountain side. Nor did he join them
+until sent for by Aphiz.
+
+Let another chapter explain the mystery of this singular
+abstraction.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HAPPY CONCLUSION.
+
+
+
+
+
+The skies were yet blushing with departing day, and the evening
+shadows were quietly advancing over mountain top and sheltered
+valley, the dew was already touching the evening atmosphere with its
+fragrant mist, "Leaving on craggy hills and running streams, A
+softness like the atmosphere of dreams," when those who had so
+providentially been saved from the wreck, wended their way to the
+door of Komel's home. Scarcely could the poor girl restrain her
+impatience, scarcely wait for a moment to have the glad tidings
+broken to those within, before she should throw herself into her
+parents' arms. O, the joy that burst like sunshine upon those sad,
+half broken hearts, while tears of happiness coursed like mountain
+rivulets down their furrowed cheeks. Their dear, dear child was with
+them once more. Komel was safe, and they were again happy.
+
+"But who are these, my child?" asked the father of Komel, pointing
+to Selim and Zillah.
+
+"To him am I indebted, jointly with Aphiz, for my deliverance from
+bondage," she answered, taking Selim's hand and leading him to her
+father. "And this," she continued, putting an arm about Zillah, "is
+a dear sister whom I have learned to love for her kindness and sweet
+disposition. Both come to make our mountain side their future home."
+
+Nor was the poor half-witted boy forgotten, but he received a share
+of the kindly welcome, and seemed in his peculiar way to understand
+and appreciate it, keeping continually by Komel's side.
+
+An hour around the social board seemed to acquaint them all with the
+history of the past twelvemonth, and to reveal more than we might
+specify in many pages. The cottage was full of grateful hearts and
+happy souls that night; and Aphiz learned that since Krometz had
+fallen in that fatal encounter, the deed of the abduction had been
+fully proved upon him, and that so earnest were the feelings of the
+mountaineers in relation to the justice of Aphiz's conduct in that
+matter that he need fear no trouble concerning it. Thus assured, he
+too joined the home circle of his parents.
+
+Captain Selim, with his bride, made Komel's house their home, but
+the young officer could not close his eyes to sleep. He rose with
+fevered brow and paced the lawn before the cottage until morning.
+Strange struggles seemed to be going on in his brain like a waking
+dream; he was striving to recall something in the dark vista of the
+past.
+
+"You seem trouble this morning," said Komel's father, observing his
+mood. "Are you not well?"
+
+"No, not exactly well," replied Selim; "indeed a strange dream seems
+to come over me while I look about me here--this mountain air, these
+surrounding hills, the distant view of the sea, have I ever seen
+these things before, or is it some troubled action of the brain that
+oppresses me with undefined recollections?"
+
+"Come in and partake of our morning meal; that will refresh you,"
+said the mountaineer.
+
+"Thanks; yes, I will join you at once," he replied, but turned away
+thoughtfully.
+
+With the earliest morning, Aphiz was again at the cottage and by
+Komel's side. O, how beautiful did she look to him now, once more
+attired in her simple dress of a mountaineer's daughter. No tongue
+could describe the fondness of his heart, or the dear truthfulness
+of her own expressive face when they met thus again. Their hearts
+were too full, far too full for words, and they wandered away
+together to old familiar scenes and spots in silence, save that
+their sympathetic souls were all the while communing with each
+other. At last they came to a spot from whence the lovely valley
+opened just below them, when suddenly Aphiz pointed to a projecting
+and dead limb of a tree far beneath them, and asked Komel if she
+remembered the scene of the hawk and dove.
+
+"Alas! dear Aphiz, but too well. It was indeed an unheeded warning."
+
+"But the dove is once more restored now, dearest, and we must look
+only for happy omens."
+
+"I have seen so much of sadness, Aphiz," she answered, "that I shall
+only the more dearly prize the quiet peacefulness of our native
+hills."
+
+"Thus too is it with me. A few months of excitement, toil, danger
+and unhappiness abroad, has endeared each spot that we have loved in
+our childhood still more strongly to me."
+
+"Then shall good come out of evil, dear Aphiz, inasmuch as we shall
+now live content."
+
+"Have you seen Captain Selim this morning, Komel?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, and I fear he is ill, some heavy weight seems to be upon his
+heart."
+
+"Let us seek him then, for we owe all to his manliness and courage."
+
+As the twilight hour once crept over hill and valley, the evening
+meal was spread on the open lawn before the cottage, and when this
+was over, all sat there and told of the events that had passed, and
+each other's experiences, for the few past months, during which time
+Komel had remained a prisoner at the Sultan's palace. Of Selim, they
+knew only so much of his history as was connected with themselves,
+and he was asked to relate his story.
+
+"Mine has been a life of little interest," he said, "save to myself
+alone. Of my birth and parentage I know nothing, and my earliest
+recollections carry me back to the period when I was a boy on board
+a Trebizond merchantman, at a time when I was just recovering from
+what is called the Asia fever, a malady that often attacks those who
+come from the north of the Black Sea to the Asia coast to live. This
+fever leaves the invalid deranged for weeks, and when he recovers
+from it, he is like an infant and obliged from that hour to
+cultivate his brain as from earliest childhood, and he can recall
+nothing of the past. Thus I lost the years of my life up to the age
+of eight or nine.
+
+"I served in that ship until I was its first officer, and by good
+luck, having been once employed in one of the Sultan's ships as a
+pilot during a fierce gale, through which I was enabled, by my good
+luck, to carry the ship safely. I was appointed at once a lieutenant
+in the service, with good pay, and the means of improvement. The
+latter my taste led me to take advantage of, and in a short time I
+found myself in the command, where I was able to serve you."
+
+"But you had no means whereby to learn of your birth and early
+childhood?" asked Komel's mother.
+
+"None; I have thought much of the subject, but what effort to make
+in order to discover the truth as it regards this matter, I know
+not."
+
+"Had you nothing about your person that could indicate your origin?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nor could the people with whom you sailed account for these
+things?" asked Aphiz.
+
+"They said that I was taken off from a wreck on the Asia shore, the
+only survivor of a crew."
+
+"How very strange," repeated all.
+
+"You found nothing then upon you to mark the fact?" asked Komel's
+mother once more, sadly.
+
+"Nothing--stay--there was an oaken cross upon my neck. I had nearly
+forgotten that; I wear it still, and for years I have thought it a
+sacred amulet, but it can reveal nothing."
+
+"The cross, the cross?" they cried in one voice, "let us see it."
+
+As he unbuttoned the collar of his coat and drew forth the emblem,
+Komel's mother, who had drawn close to his side, uttered a wild cry
+of delight as she fell into her husband's arms, saying:
+
+"It is our lost boy!"
+
+Words would but faintly express the scene and feelings that followed
+this announcement, and we leave the reader's own appreciations to
+fill up the picture to which we have referred.
+
+Yes, Captain Selim, the gallant officer who had saved Aphiz's life,
+and liberated Komel from the Sultan's harem, was her own dear
+brother, but who had been counted as dead years and years gone by.
+Could a happier consummation have been devised? and Zillah, who
+loved Selim so tenderly before, now found fresh cause for joy,
+delight and tenderness in the new page in her husband's history.
+
+Selim, too, now understood the secret influence that had led him to
+bid so high for the lone slave he had met in the bazaar, the reason
+why he had, by some undefined intuitive sense, been so drawn towards
+her in his feelings, for the dumb and beautiful girl was his unknown
+sister!
+
+And again when he heard her name mentioned, for the first time, by
+the Armenian physician, it will be remembered how the name rung in
+his ears, awaking some long forgotten feelings, yet so indistinctly
+that he could not express or fairly analyze them. The same
+sensations have more than once come over him since that hour while
+they were suffering together the hardships of the week, and the
+fearful scenes that followed the gale they had encountered after the
+chase.
+
+Aphiz and Komel loved each other now, as they never could have done,
+but for the strange vicissitudes which they had shared together.
+They had grown to be necessary to each other's being, and even when
+absent from each other for a few hours, in soul they were still
+together. And hand in hand, side by side, they still wandered about
+the wild mountain scenery of their native hills. They had no
+thoughts but of love, no desires that were not in unison, no
+throbbing of their breasts that did not echo a kindred token in each
+other's hearts. Life, kindred, the whole world were seen by them
+through the soft ideal hues of ever present affection.
+
+And when, at last, with full consent from her parents, Aphiz led
+Komel a blushing bride to the altar, and Selim and Zillah supported
+them on either side, how happy were they all!
+
+Years pass on in the hills of Circassia as in all the rest of the
+world beside. Sunshine and shadow glance athwart its crowning peaks,
+the waves of the Black Sea lave its shores, its daughters still
+dream of a home among the Turks, and the secret cargoes are yet run
+from Anapa up the Golden Horn. The slave bazaar of the Ottoman
+capital still presents its bevy of fair creatures from the north,
+and the Sultan's agents are ever on the alert for the most beautiful
+to fill the monarch's harem. The Brother of the Sun chooses his
+favorites from out a score of lovely Georgians and Circassians, but
+he does not forget her who had so entranced his heart, so enslaved
+his affections, and then so mysteriously escaped from his gilded
+cage.
+
+But as time passes on the scene changes--rosy-cheeked children cling
+about Aphiz's knees, and a dear, black-eyed representative of her
+mother clasps her tiny arms about his neck. And so, too, are Selim
+and Zillah blessed, and their children play and laugh together,
+causing an ever constant flow of delight to the parents' hearts.
+
+There ever watches over them one sober, quiet eye--one whom the
+children love dearly, for he joins them in all their games and
+sports, and astonishes and delights them by his wonderful feats of
+agility. It is the half-witted creature, who had followed and loved
+Komel so well. As years have passed over him, the sun-light of
+reason gradually crept into his brain, and the poor boy saw a new
+world before him. His only care, his only thought, his constant
+delight seeming to be these lovely children.
+
+The events of the past are often recurred to by Komel and her
+husband, around the quiet hearthstone that forms the united home of
+Selim, Zillah, and themselves, and the sun sets in the west,
+shedding its parting rays over no happier circle than theirs. Nor
+does Komel now regret that she was once the Sultan's slave.
+
+As now he lays down his pen, let the author hope that he has won the
+kind consideration and remembrance of those who have read his story
+of THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE.
+
+THE END.
+
+[FROM GLEASON'S PICTORIAL DRAWING ROOM COMPANION.]
+
+A SCRAP OF ROMAN HISTORY.
+
+BY AN UNKNOWN POET.
+
+    In the olden days of Roman
+        Grandeur, glory, wealth, and pride;
+    Once there came a might legion
+    From a vast and far-off region
+        And this Roman power defied.
+    Naught could stay their devastations
+        In the lands through which they came;
+    All the weeping supplications
+    Of the terror-stricken nations
+        Could not quench these Vandals' flame.
+    Ah! most cruel were the invaders,
+        Cruel their chastizing rods!
+    For their hearts were stone-like hardened,
+    These remorseless and unpardoned
+        Foes of men and all the gods.
+    And at last they came with boastings
+        To the gods' and learning's home;
+    Came with boasting, loud and merry,
+    Came, at last, unto the very
+        Walls of proud, imperial Rome.
+    Ah! why did they not, in mercy,
+        Spare the "Mistress of the World!"
+    Or, why did they not, when power
+    Sat on Roman wall and tower,
+        Come, and bid their darts be hurled.
+    For the Romans' strength was broken.
+        Gone, like light from darkness, now;
+    Now, when most that strength was need,
+    Strength was not;--there
+        Weakness worse than Venla's vow.
+    Bearing all the outward semblance
+        Of a firm and mighty hold,
+    Rome was inwardly as feeble
+    As a cemeteried people
+        Changed into corruption's mould.
+    Ease, corruption, strife, dissension,
+        Gaiety, licentious mirth,
+    Luxury;--O, bane of mortals!
+    All had sapped the very portals
+        Of this mightiest queen of earth.
+    Therefore, when these hordes of robbers
+        Swarmed around the Roman's way,
+    Scarcely shadow of resistance
+    Met them near, or in the distance,
+        And they found an easy prey.
+    Vandals, Alans, Allemanni,
+        Longobardi, Avars, Moors,
+    Goths, Suevi, Huns, Bulgarians,
+    Overwhelming, rude barbarians
+        Conquered Rome with deafening roars.
+    Desecrated, fired and plundered,
+        Worse than vessel tempest-tost.
+    Rome was by her dissipations
+    Blotted from the list of nations;
+        Rome was lost!--forever lost!
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE; OR,
+THE SULTAN'S FAVORITE:  A STORY OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE CAUCASUS ***
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