Instead of that, they waged war within the very walls of Stambul, for whenever the news of a defeat reached the capital, the Janissaries would fall upon the defenceless Greeks and massacre them by thousands.

From distant Asia, from the most savage parts of the empire, Begtash's priests appeared and proclaimed in the mosques death and destruction on the heads of all the Greeks. It was they who, with torches in their hands, headed the rush of the fanatical Janissaries against Buyukdere, Pera, and Galata, the quarters of the city where the Greeks resided, and every day they thundered with their bludgeons at the gates of the Seraglio, demanding ever more and more sentences of death against the Greek captives who were shut up in the Seven Towers. The Sultan's officials, trembling with fear, wrote out the sentences demanded of them, and the victims fell in hundreds; and when the Russian ambassador, Stroganov, protested against this butchery, the Janissaries attacked his palace and riddled all the doors and windows with bullets, which was the subsequent pretext for the long war which shook the empire to its base, though the Janissaries never lived to feel it.

Mahmoud watched from the summit of the imperial palace the devastation of Stambul and the devastation of his empire, and he saw no help anywhere. He saw nothing but the melancholy examples of his ancestors and the disappearance of his dominions; and as he stroked the head of his first-born, Abdul Mejid, a child of nine, he thought to himself, "This lad will not sit on the throne, he will not be a ruler as his forefathers were; he will not dictate laws to half the world like the other descendants of Omar; but he will be a fugitive on the face of the earth, the slave of strange people, as was the fugitive Dzhem, whom they cast forth ages ago."

How miserable was the life of the Sultan! What avails it though an earthly paradise be open to him if life itself be closed against him? What avails it to be a god if he cannot be a man? The Sultan never knows what it is to have relatives. Very early, while they are still children, the latest born are shut up in the Seven Towers. The first-born son can never meet them, unless it be on the steps of the throne, when the rebellious Janissaries drag one of them from his dungeon to raise him to the throne, and lock up the first-born in his stead. The Sultan cannot be said to possess a wife; all that he has are favorite concubines, in hundreds, in thousands, as many as he chooses to have, and there is no difference between them except differences of feminine loveliness and the blind chance which blesses some of them with children. And he makes no more account of one than he does of another. Not one of them feels it her duty to love her husband; it is enough if she be the slave of his desires. If the Padishah be troubled or sorrowful, there is none about him to whom he can open his heart. He may go from one end of the harem to the other, like one who wanders through a conservatory whose flowers are all so beautiful, so radiantly smiling; but in vain will he tell them of his grief and trouble, for they do not understand him, they do not trouble their heads about his thoughts; and if, perchance, he tells them that from all four corners of the world mighty foes are marching against Stambul, here and there, perchance, he may hear a sigh of longing from some captive maiden, who cannot conceal her secret joy at the thought of the happy hour when the hand of deliverance will thunder at the harem door and break its bolts and give freedom, beautiful sunbright freedom, to the captives.

It is slavish obsequiousness and nothing else which bends its knee before the Padishah; it is fear, not love, which obeys him. And to whom shall he turn when his heart is held fast in the iron grip of that numbing sensation which makes the mightiest feel they are but men—fear?

Mahmoud's sole joy was his nine-year-old son. The child was brought up by his grandmother, the Sultana Valideh, herself scarce forty years of age. This dowager Sultana had civilized, European tastes. She had been educated in France; the young prince was passionately attached to her and she inspired him with all those desires and noble instincts under whose influence, thirty years later, new life was to be poured into the decrepit Turkish Empire.

The Sultana Valideh wished to so educate her grandson that one day he might occupy a worthy position among the other rulers of Europe. She sowed betimes in his heart the seeds of high principles and enlightened tastes, and the Sultan would frequently listen to the wise sentences of his little lad, and, while rocking him on his knee, with a smile upon his face, his heart would beat in an agony of fear, "What if anybody got word of this?"

For the old Turkish party lay in wait for every word that fell from the Sultan's mouth, and the pointing of the little finger of one of Begtash's fakirs was more to be feared than the armed hand of the most valiant of the Greek heroes. If any one of the Ulemas should chance to discover that the young heir to the throne listened to any other bookish lore than what was contained within the covers of the Kuran, which comprised within itself (so they taught) all the wisdom of the world, they were capable of hounding on the Janissaries against the Seraglio, and slaying both sovereign and child.

The recollection of Achmed Sidi was still fresh in the memory of men. Sidi had been one of the Chief Ulemas, and the Imam of the Mosque of Sophia; and when, a few years ago, the warriors and the diplomatists of the Tsaritsa Catherine had won victory after victory over the Ottomans, not only on every battle-field, but also in every political arena, the unfortunate imam advised the Divan that, in view of the indisputable superiority of the Christians, it was necessary to teach the Turkish diplomatists the Bible, the inference being that just as the Moslem sages derived all their military science and all their administrative wisdom from the Kuran, so also the Christians must needs learn all these things from their Bible, thereby tacitly acknowledging the capacity of the Christians for appropriating all knowledge. But the well-meaning Ulema paid dearly for this good counsel. They banished him to the Isle of Chios, and there, for a very trivial offence, he was first degraded from his office (for it is not lawful to kill a Ulema with weapons), and then handed over to the pasha of the place, who pounded him to death in a stone mortar—a deterrent example for future reformers. Let them beware, therefore, of moving a single stone in the ancient fabric of the Ottoman constitution!

CHAPTER XII
THE SHIPWRECK OF LEONIDAS

Now, one fine day, when the worthy Leonidas Argyrocantharides set out from Smyrna on one of his prettiest ships, a vexatious little accident befell him by the way. The ship, which had taken in a cargo of tanned hides at Stambul, was overtaken, en route, by a tempest which drove her upon the coast of Seleucia. There, in the darkness of the night, she was thrown upon a sand-bank, from which she was unable to extricate herself till morning; and it was only when the land became visible in the early light of dawn that the merchant began to realize the awkward position into which his ship had got, despite Saint Procopius and Saint Demetrius, who were very beautifully painted on both sides of her prow. The vessel had heeled over on one side, and that side of her which lay above the waves was threatened every moment with destruction by the onset of the foaming surf which broke from time to time over the deck, making a pretty havoc of the masts and spars. The joints of the ship's timbers began to be loosened, creaking and shivering at each fresh shock of the waves. And if the fate of the ship on the sand-bank was sad enough, still sadder would it have been if she had broken loose therefrom; for right in front of her lay the rocks of the Seleucian coast, whose steep crags were lashed so furiously by the raging sea that the crashing waves leaped fully a hundred fathoms up their sides. A nice place this would have been for any ship to play pitch-and-toss in!

The worthy merchant sorely lamented his fate, sorely lamented, also, his fine ship, which was painted in elaborate patterns with all the colors of the rainbow. He lamented his many beautiful goat-skins, not a single bundle of which he would allow to be cast into the sea for the purpose of lightening the ship; rather let them all go to the bottom together! He mourned over himself, too, condemned at the beginning of the best years of his life to be suffocated in the sea; but what he lamented far more than ship, goat-skins, or even life itself, were the two Circassian children, the precious, beautiful boy and girl, Thomar and Milieva, who were worth, at the current market prices of the day, ten thousand ducats apiece; Leonidas would have given his own skin for them any day!

Full of great hopes, he had embarked the two children at Stambul (the tanned hides were only a secondary consideration); and lo! now, just when he was reaching his goal, the curse of Kasi Mollah overtook him.

Two long-boats fully manned had made an attempt to reach the shore, in order that they might from thence haul the ship off the sand-bank, and both boats had been seized before his very eyes by the breakers, and dashed to pieces against the steep rocks; so there was nothing for it but to remain behind and perish on the sand-bank.

One wave after another drove the hulk deeper and deeper down; those who still remained aboard wrung their hands and prayed or cursed, according as temperament or habit urged them.

As for Leonidas, he did both—he prayed and cursed at the same time; for it seemed quite clear to him that praying or cursing separately was of not the slightest use. The two children, meanwhile, holding each other tightly embraced, sat beside the broken stump of the mast and seemed to mock at the terrible tempest.

Not a sign of fear was visible on their faces. This roaring wind, these foam-churning waves, seemed to afford them a pleasant pastime. The black-and-white storm-birds sitting on the towering billows were swimming there all round the doomed ship, merrily flapping the water with their wings. Oh, those sea-swallows were having a fine time of it!

The two children had agreed between themselves, some time before, that if the ship went down, they would fling themselves into the water and swim ashore. That would be a mere trifle to them, of course.

Full of despair, the merchant rushed towards them, and embracing them with both his arms, he exclaimed, looking bitterly at the sky, "Merciful Heaven! ten thousand ducats!"

The children fancied that terror had made the merchant mad, and they tried to comfort him with kind words:

"Don't distress yourself, dear foster-father; we will not perish here, and we will not leave you to perish either. As soon as the ship goes down, we'll swim for the shore. We both of us know very well how to cleave the waves with our strong arms, and we will fasten you to our girdles and save you along with ourselves."

The merchant kissed the two dear children, and embraced them tenderly. An hour later the last planks of the fine ship broke away from each other, and the shipwrecked crew clung desperately to the floating spars that the waves tossed hither and thither. The greater part of the ship's company was ingulfed forthwith by the waves or dashed to pieces against the hard rocks; only three persons were saved—the merchant and the two children.

Leonidas, fast tied to their girdles, allowed himself to be cast among the waters. The first who rose on the crest of the foaming waves was Thomar. He perceived the rock on which a huge mountain of surf, rushing after him, threatened to dash him to pieces, and, watching his opportunity, grasped the long dangling roots of a tree which grew out of a cleft of the rocks and, with a tremendous effort, dragged all three of them up to it. The wave rolled right over them, burying them for an instant in deep water; but the next moment the surge rolled back again, and they were on the rocky coast.

The merchant was more dead than alive, so the children had to drag him with them for a long way inland, lest the returning surge should carry them back to sea again. They only ventured to rest when they had reached a rocky cavity where they could feel sure that they were safe. Even here the water, which shot up as high as a tower against the opposing rock, covered them every moment; but they did not feel its weight.

There they had to remain, crouching closely together, till the evening. Neither in front nor behind was there any place of refuge, and it was with a feeling of envy that they looked down upon the stormy petrels which towards evening began to sit down in long rows on the edge of the rocks, whither it was impossible for them to follow.

Gradually, however, the storm died away, the sea subsided and grew smooth, and the place where the shipwrecked group had taken refuge rose three ells above the surface of the water. Then they could venture to look around them. The whole shore was strewn with pieces of timber and mangled corpses. Wreckage and dead bodies were all that the sea had vomited forth of the rich cargo of the fine ship.

But the merchant did not despair. Making the two children kneel down beside him, he knelt down in their midst, and made them pray a prayer of gratitude to Heaven for their marvellous deliverance; and then, pressing them to his bosom, he sobbed, with the tears in his eyes, "What do I care, though my ship is lost and all my wares are submerged, so long as ye remain to me, my precious offspring? That is quite consolation enough for me."

And the worthy merchant told the truth, for as soon as ever he could reach Stambul he was sure of getting for these two children enough to enable him to buy two ships and twice as many wares as he had lost at the bottom of the sea.

But now the most difficult question arose—How were they to get away from that spot to any place inhabited by man? All ships gave this dangerous coast a wide berth; there was nothing to tempt them to the spot. Even fishermen did not venture as far in their barks, so that the unfortunate refugees who had escaped the waters saw starvation approaching them.

But suddenly, while they were meditating over the misery of their position, they fancied they heard human voices a little distance off—deep, manly voices, apparently engaged in a lively dispute.

The two children rejoiced, thinking that good men were hard by; but the merchant trembled, for, thought he, "What if they be robbers?"

Thomar now bade his sister remain with Leonidas while he went in the direction of the voices to discover who the speakers might be. The brave boy clambered from one cliff to another, made the circuit of the rock-chamber behind which they were sitting, and when he came to the opposite side of it a spacious empty cavern yawned blackly in front of him, half covered by whortleberry bushes. Probably the conversation came from thence, but neither near nor far was a human creature to be seen, nor were there any footprints of men on the ground; the front of the cavern was covered with thick green moss, on which footprints left no trace. Thomar shouted into the cave, and as not a word came back, he boldly entered, and slowly advanced forward. He went on and on as far as the light of the outside world extended, and then, as no one replied to his loud challenges, turned back again by the way he had come, and, making the circuit of the rock again, told the merchant that he had not come upon any human beings, but had only found a cavern which, at any rate, would make them good night quarters.

The conversation they thought they had heard must have been a delusion. Then they helped one another along the rocks and arrived at the mouth of the cavern.

Milieva had scarcely cast a glance into it when she exclaimed, full of joy: "Look, Thomar, here are two chests among the bushes!" And, indeed, there were two boxes made of boards, and Thomar wondered that he had not noticed them before. No doubt the sea had cast them up thither out of some ship that had been wrecked there before.

One of the boxes resembled those chests in which sailors keep their biscuits, but the shape of the other suggested that it was one of those hermetically sealed vessels used for holding good wines. Why should they not turn them to some account?

They were not long in forcing them open, and what was their astonishment when they perceived that the biscuits in the first box were not even mouldy, but quite dry and sound, as if they had only been brought thither quite recently; while in the second box not one of the scores of flasks there displayed was broken or cracked, but lay neatly stored away in layers of straw?

The refugees did not greatly concern themselves with the question, Who put these boxes here? and why? Nobody who, after being tossed about on the sea for three days with nothing to eat or drink all the time, and is then unexpectedly confronted with rich stores of bread and wine—nobody, I am sure, under such circumstances would think of consulting the Kuran as to whether a conscientious Mussulman should eat and drink such things, but would fall to at once, and thank Allah for the chance.

The children forgot, in the twinkling of an eye, the dangers to which they had been exposed, and, after the first glass or two of wine, overcome by fatigue, lay down on the soft bed which Nature had made ready for them with her most fragrant moss. Leonidas, however, remained sitting where he was, considering it his bounden duty to taste all the wines which were here offered to him gratis, one after the other; in consequence whereof, when he did lie down at last, he chose a position in which his head was very low down while his feet were high in the air, and so they all three slumbered peacefully together.

Then the voices of men were heard once more far off in the cavern, and not long afterwards there emerged from its black mouth six gray-haired, pale-faced human beings. He who came first was the eldest. His white beard reached to his girdle, his mouth was hidden by his mustache, and his eyes were covered by his white eyebrows.

These men were fakirs of the Omarite Order, whose rule obliges them to endure the most terrible of all renunciations—abstention from all enjoyment of the light of day. Plunging themselves into eternal darkness for the glory of Allah, they make of life a long midnight, and the sun never beholds them on the face of the earth.

The night was well advanced when the six Omarites came forth to the sleepers, and while five of the fakirs stood round them in silence, the sixth—the one with the long flowing beard—bent over the children and examined their features attentively in the darkness of the night, which was only mitigated by the light of a few faint stars half hidden among errant clouds. At last he whispered to his comrades, "It is they." Then, turning the tips of his thumbs downwards, he laid them softly on Thomar's head. All five fakirs listened with rapt attention. The bosom of the sleeping lad began to heave tumultuously; he clinched his fists; his face grew hot; his lips swelled. The old man then seemed to breathe upon his forehead, as if he would whisper something, whereupon the sleeping lad exclaimed, in a strong, audible voice, "With swords, with guns, with arms!"

The old men shook their heads, showing thereby that they approved of his words.

Then the eldest old man bent over the other child and made passes over her face with his five fingers. The maiden's bosom expanded visibly, and when the old man stooped over and breathed upon her she cried out in an energetic, dictatorial manner, "Down on your knees before me!"

At this the Omarites all whispered together, and two of them lifting the lad, two the girl, and two the merchant, they carried them on their shoulders into the depths of the cavern.

The mouth of this cavern was the already mentioned tunnel whose farthest exit debouched upon the valley of Seleucia, half a league from the sea—that waste, barren, and savage valley.

The Omarites moved to and fro in the black cave without a torch, like the blind, who do not go astray in the turnings and windings of the streets, although they see them not. The sleepers had drunk a magic potion, which did not permit them to awake for some time, and the men carried them on their shoulders to the opposite entrance of the cavern and there laid them down on the moss, in a place where the sunlight was wont to penetrate.

It was already late in the day when the two children awoke. As soon as they had opened their eyes, their first care was to kiss and embrace each other. Then they aroused the merchant also and, rubbing sleep out of their eyes, began to tell him, in childish fashion, what they had been dreaming about.

"Ah! what a lovely dream I had!" cried Thomar, and even now his eyes sparkled. "I was standing beside the Sultan, who was leaning on my shoulder. Before me and around me howled a rebellious multitude, and the Sultan was pale and sad. Turning towards me he sighed, 'Wherewith shall I appease this raging sea?' For a long time I could find no answer. It was as if something were weighing me down, something as heavy as a mountain, when suddenly the words escaped from my lips, 'With swords, with guns, with weapons!' And then the Padishah girded his own sword upon me, and I rushed among the howling mob, and I cut and hacked away at them till they were all consumed, and at last a field that had been reaped lay before me, and it was covered with nothing but corpses."

"That is a foolish dream," said Leonidas. "Why did you eat so much last night?"

And now Milieva told her dream.

"I also must have been confused by the wine. Before me also a rebellious multitude appeared, and it then seemed to me as if I was not a girl but a boy. Furiously they rushed upon me from every side, but I feared them not, and when they were quite near to me I cried out to them, 'Down on your knees before me! I am the Sultan's daughter!' And everything was instantly quiet."

The merchant laughed till he choked at this dream. Who but children could dream such rubbish?

"But at home they used to say," observed Thomar, with a grave face, "that whatever any one dreams in a strange place where he has never slept before, he will see that dream accomplished."

"Well, I am much obliged to you," said the merchant, "for in my dream I was hanging up in Salonika by my feet, with my head downwards."

Then the merchant made the children leave the cavern.

"Come, my children," said he, "let us see if the sea has calmed down, and whether a ship is approaching from anywhere."

Thomar obeyed, quitted the cavern, and exclaimed, in astonishment:

"Look, my dear foster-father! How could a ship come here when the very sea has vanished, and only the bottom of it remains."

And indeed the district stretching out before them was quite bare and barren enough to be taken for the bottom of the sea.

Leonidas took the lad's words for a joke, and it was a joke he did not relish.

"Keep your witticisms for another time, my son," said he, "and rub your eyes that they may see the better."

But Milieva leaped after Thomar, and when she had got up to him she clapped her hands together, and exclaimed, with naïve amazement:

"Why, the sea has run away from us!"

And now the merchant himself arose from his place, went out of the cavern, and could scarce believe his eyes when he saw before him the savage, rocky region, where not a drop of moisture could be seen, to say nothing of the sea!

"God has worked wonders for us," sighed the merchant. "It is plain that we are in quite a different place from that wherein we went to sleep."

"No doubt the peris of the mountains of Kâf have conveyed us hither," said Milieva.

"Peris, no doubt," observed Leonidas, absently, groping for his long reticule, and feeling whether his diamonds were still there. If it were not peris, they would certainly have searched him for his diamonds.

And now they had to find out where they were, and what was the best way to get out of the wilderness. The greatest anxiety had disappeared; they had no longer anything to fear from the sea. On dry land it would be much easier to find a place of refuge.

After a little searching they came upon footprints in the sand, and these footprints led them to the mouth of the valley. Whole forests of the large cochineal cactus grew among the rocks, and here and there they saw a light-footed kid grazing on the dry sward. Not very long afterwards they fell in with the goatherd. Leonidas was rather alarmed than delighted at the sight of the grim muscular figure, who, on perceiving them, came straight towards them, and addressed them in a gruff voice.

"Are ye those shipwrecked fugitives who slept at night in the Cavern of the dzhin?"

"Dzhin!" said Leonidas to himself. "Methinks it must have been a spirit of evil, then."

The children answered the goatherd boldly, and begged him to direct them to some inhabited region.

"Go straight along this gorge," said he; "you cannot mistake the path. On your right hand you will find a hut where dwells a fakir of the Erdbuhar Order, who will direct you farther. Salám alek!" And with that the goatherd quitted them, to the great amazement of Leonidas, who had expected nothing less of him than highway robbery.

Towards evening they had arrived at the hut of the Erdbuhar hermit.

"I have been expecting you," said the dervish, when they came up to him. "Have you not suffered shipwreck and slept all night with the dzhin?"

Evidently one marvel after another was in store for them.

The dervish gave them meat and drink, and washed their feet, and after they had enjoyed his hospitality he offered to conduct them all the way to the gates of Seleucia. The merchant would very much have liked to know something of his wondrous deliverers, but as the dervish answered all his questions with quotations from the Kuran, he learned very little that was definite from that holy man.

When Seleucia came in sight, the merchant began thanking the dervish for his good offices. "Do not weary thyself any further, worthy Mussulman," cried he; "I know not how to reward thy labors, but Allah will requite thee. I am a beggar. Thou dost see that I am as bare as one of my fingers. The ocean hath swallowed up my all."

And all the while his reticule was full of precious stones; but he would have considered it a very great act of folly not to have made capital out of his wretchedness, and paid the dervish with fine words.

But the dervish would not even accept his thanks. "It is but my duty," said he, "and I did it not for thy sake, but for the sake of others." And with that he quitted them, after giving a string of praying-beads to each of the children.

The children went on in front till they reached the gate of the city, talking in a low voice together; but when they found themselves in the populous streets they took Leonidas by the hand, and Thomar said, "All that was thine has been lost in the sea, and who will help us in the great strange city, where nobody knows us? Let us therefore sing in the market-place and before the houses of the great men, and they will give us money, and so we shall be able to go on farther."

The merchant was greatly affected by this naïve offer, and allowed the children to sing in the market-place and in the porch of the pasha's house, and in this way they gained enough money to enable them to go on to the next city.

Thus, at last, they got back to Smyrna. If they had been his own children Argyrocantharides could not have looked for greater and heartier affection from them. They fasted that he might feast, they shivered that he might be warmly clad, they denied themselves sleep that he might slumber all the more tranquilly, and lowered themselves to singing in the market-place that he might not be compelled to beg at the corners of the streets.

Good children! sweet children!

As soon as the merchant could get a new ship he took them with him to Stambul, and this time no misfortune happened to them by the way.

At Stambul he exhibited them to the Kizlar-Agasi, who, after examining their limbs and satisfying himself as to their capabilities, bought the pair of them from the merchant at his own price—the youth for the Sultan's corps of pages, the girl for the harem.

To the honor of the worthy merchant, however, it must be said that when he did hand the children over he sobbed bitterly. Good, worthy man!

CHAPTER XIII
A BALL IN THE SERAGLIO

A great surprise had been prepared for the Sultana Valideh. The Sultan had arranged the whole thing himself in secret. He was going to give a dance, after the European fashion, in the Seraglio.

Tailors were brought from Vienna who set to work upon dresses in the latest fashion for the odalisks; the eunuchs were taught the latest waltz music, a minuet, and two French square dances; and the girls were all taught how to dance these dances. The men who had admittance into the harem, the Kizlar-Agasi, the Anaktar Bey, the heir to the throne (Abdul Mejid), and the Sultan himself, wore brown European dress-suits, so that when the Sultana stepped into the magnificently illuminated porcelain chamber she stood rooted to the floor with astonishment. She imagined herself to be at a court ball at Paris, just as she had seen it at the Louvre when a child. A surging mob of hundreds and hundreds of young odalisks was proudly strutting to and fro in stylish dresses of the latest fashion, in long gloves and silk stockings. Instead of turbans, plumed hats and bouquets adorned the magnificent masses of their curled and frizzled locks. They moved about with bare shoulders and bosoms, in soft wavy dresses, with fans painted over with butterflies, freely laughing and jesting in this, to them, newest of worlds, and the only thing that differentiated this ball from our dancing entertainments was the absence of the darker portion of the show—the masculine element.

There were only four representatives of this sombre nuance—to wit, the Sultan, the heir to the throne, the Kizlar-Agasi, and the Anaktar Bey. Of these four, two were no longer and two were not yet men. All four were dressed in stiff Hungarian dolmans, long black pantaloons, and red fezes. The Sultan, with his thick-set figure, would have passed very well for a substantial Hungarian deputy-lord-lieutenant, with his tight-fitting, bulging dolman buttoned right up to his chin. The young prince's elegant figure, on the other hand, was brought into strong relief by his well-made suit; his hair was nicely curled on both sides, and his genteel white shirt was visible beneath his open dolman. The Kizlar-Agasi, on the contrary, cut a very amusing figure in his unwonted garb. He was constantly endeavoring to thrust his hand into his girdle, and only thus perceived that he had none, and he kept on holding down the tails of his coat, as if he felt ashamed that they might not reach low enough to cover him decently.

The Sultana Valideh was favorably surprised. The spectacle brought back to her her childish years, and she gratefully pressed her son to her bosom for this delicate attention, while he respectfully kissed his mother's hands. The Sultan scattered his love among a great many women, but his mother alone could boast of possessing his respect.

The odalisks surrounded the good Sultan, rejoicing and caressing him. He was never severe to any of them—nay, rather, he was the champion, the defender of them all, and those whom he loved might be quite sure that his affection would be constant.

Every one tried to please the Sultana Valideh by showing her their new garments, but none of them found such favor in her eyes as the new flower, which had only recently been introduced into the Seraglio, and was now the foremost of them all, the beautiful Circassian damsel. Her light step, the dove-like droop of her neck, the charm of her full, round shoulders, and her lovely young bosom, were such that one was almost tempted to believe that she had been carried off bodily from some Parisian salon, where they know so well how to take the utmost advantage of all the resources of fashion. Her locks were dressed up à la Vallière, with negligently falling curls which gave a slightly masculine expression to her face—an additional charm in the eyes of a connoisseur. Yes, the Greek merchant was right; there was no spot on the earth worth anything except the place where Milieva lived and moved.

The Valideh kissed the odalisk on the forehead, and led her by the hand to the Sultan, who would not permit her to kiss his hand (who ever heard of a lady kissing the hand of a gentleman in evening dress?), but permitted the young heir to the throne to take Milieva on his arm and conduct her through the room. What a pretty pair of children they made! Abdul Mejid at this time was scarce twelve years of age, the girl perhaps was fourteen; but for the difference of their clothes, nobody could have said which was the boy and which the girl.

And now the tones of the hidden orchestra began to be heard, and a fresh surprise awaited the Sultana. She heard once more the pianoforte melodies which she had known long ago, and the height of her amazement was reached when the Sultan invited her to dance—a minuet.

What an absurd idea! The Sultana dowager to dance a minuet with her son, the Sultan, before all those laughing odalisks, who had never beheld such a thing before? Where was the second couple? Why here—the prince and Milieva, of course. They take their places opposite the imperial couple, and to slow, dreamy music, with great dignity they dance together the courteous and melancholy dance, bowing and courtesying to each other with as much majesty and aplomb as was ever displayed by the powdered cavaliers and beauty-plastered goddesses of the age of the Œil de Bœuf.

Never had such a spectacle been seen in the Seraglio.

The Sultana herself was amazed at the triumphant dexterity which Milieva displayed in the dance; she was a consummate maid of honor, with that princely smile for which Gabrielle D'Estrées was once so famous. The good Mahmoud so lost himself in the contemplation of the eyes of Milieva, his vis-à-vis, that towards the end of the dance he quite forgot his own part in it, folding Milieva to his breast in defiance of all rule and ceremony, and even kissing her face twice or thrice, although he ought not to have gone beyond kissing her hand—nay, he ought not to have kissed her hand at all, but the hand of his partner, the Sultana Valideh.

When the minuet was over the eunuch musicians played a waltz in which all the odalisks took part, clinging to one another in couples, and thus they danced the pretty trois pas dance, for the deux pas revolution was the invention of a later and more progressive age. Louder than the music was the joyous uproar of the dancers themselves. Here and there some of them tumbled on the slippery floor to which they were not accustomed, and the nymphs coming after them fell around them in heaps. Some disliked the dance or were weary, but their firier and more robust partners dragged them along, willy-nilly. The old Kizlar-Agasi and the bey stood in the midst of them to take care that no scandal took place. Suddenly the madcap odalisk army surrounded them, clung on to them in twos and threes, dragged them into the mad waltz, and twisted them round and round at a galloping pace, till the two good old gentlemen had no more breath left in them.

The Sultan and the Valideh, with the prince and Milieva, were sitting on a raised daïs, laughing and looking on at the merry spectacle. The pipers piped more briskly, the drummers drummed more furiously, the cymbals clashed more loudly than ever, while the odalisks dragged their prey about uproariously.

Ah! Listen! What didst thou hear, good Sultan? What noise is that outside which mingles with the hubbub within? Outside there also is to be heard the roll of drums, the flourish of trumpets, and the shouts of men.

Nonsense! 'Tis but imagination. Bring hither the glasses—not those tiny cups of sherbet, for this is the birthday of the Valideh. We will be Europeans to-night. Bring hither wine and glasses for a toast!

The Sultan had a particular fondness for Tokay and champagne, and the ambassadors of both these great Powers had the greatest influence with him.

The odalisks also had to be made to taste these wines; and after that the dance proceeded more merrily, and the boisterous music and singing grew madder and madder.

What was that?

The Sultan grew attentive. What uproar is that outside the Seraglio? What light is that which shines at the top of the round windows?

That uproar is no beating of drums; those shouts are not the shouts of revellers; that din is not the beating of cymbals; no, 'tis the clashing of swords, the thundering of cannons, the tumult of a siege, and that light is not the light of bonfires but of blazing rafters!

Up, up, Mahmoud, from thy sofa! Away with thy glass and out with thy sword! This is no night for revelry; death is abroad; insurrection is at thy very gate! They are besieging the Seraglio!

Twelve thousand Janissaries, joined with the rabble of Stambul, are attacking the gates at the very time when the orchestra is playing its liveliest airs in the illuminated hall.

"Do ye hear that?" exclaimed Kara Makan, the most famous orator of the Janissaries, who with his own hand had hung up the Metropolitan of Constantinople on the very threshold of the palace. "Do ye hear that music? Here they are rejoicing when the whole empire around them is in mourning. Do ye know what are the latest tidings this night? The Suliotes have captured Gaskho Bey, and annihilated our army before Janina. A woman has blown up the ship of the Kapudan Pasha, and the Shah has fallen upon Kermandzhan with an army! Destruction is drawing near to us, and treachery dwells in the Seraglio. Hearken! They dance, they sing, they bathe their lips in wine, and their blasphemies bring upon us the scourge of Allah! We shed our tears and our blood, and they make merry and mock at us! Shall not they also weep? Shall not their blood also be shed? So fare it with them as it has fared with our brethren whom they sent to the shambles!"

The furious mob answered these seditious words with an indescribable bellowing.

"If we traversed the whole empire we should not find a worse spot than this place."

"Set fire to the Seraglio!" cried one voice suddenly, and the others took up the cry.

"And if you escape from all other enemies, would you fall into the claws of the worst enemies of all?"

"Death to the Viziers! Death to the lords of the palace!" thundered the people; and one voice close to Kara Makan, rising above the others, exclaimed, "Death to the Sultan!"

Kara Makan turned in that direction and defended his master. "Hurt not the Sultan! The life of the Sultan is sacred. He and his children are the last survivors of the blood of Omar; and although he be not worthy to sit on the throne which the heroic Muhammad erected for his descendants, yet he is the last of his race, and, therefore, the head of the Sultan is sacred. But death upon the head of the Reis-Effendi, death to the Kizlar-Agasi and the Kapudan Pasha! They are the cause of our desolation. The chiefs of the Giaours pay them to destroy their country. Tear all these up by the roots, and if there be any children of their family, destroy them also, even to the very babes and sucklings, that the memory of them may perish utterly!"

The mob thundered angrily at the gates of the Seraglio, which were shut and fastened with chains. The Janissaries blew the horns of revolt, the drums rolled, and within there the Sultan was reposing his head on the bosom of a beautiful girl. Suddenly a loud report shook the whole Seraglio. An audacious ichoglan had fired his gun upon the mob as it rushed to attack the water-gate.

The Sultan, in dismay, quitted the harem, and hastened to the middle gate in order to address the mob. On his way through the corridor, his servants and his ministers threw themselves at his feet and implored him not to show himself to the people. Mahmoud did not listen to them. In the confusion of the moment, moreover, it never occurred to him that he was wearing a Frankish costume, which the people hated and execrated.

When he appeared on the balcony the light of the torches fell full upon him, and the Janissaries recognized him. Every one at once pointed their fingers at him, and immediately an angry and scornful howl arose.

"Look! that is the Sultan! Behold the Caliph—the Caliph, the Padishah of the Moslems—in the garb of the Giaours! That is Mahmoud, the ally of our enemies!"

The Sultan shrank before this furious uproar of the mob, and, involuntarily falling back, stammered, pale as death:

"With what shall we allay this tempest?"

His servants, with quivering lips, stood around him. At that moment they neither feared nor respected their master.

Suddenly a bold young ichoglan rushed towards the Sultan, and answered his question in a courageous and confident voice:

"With swords, with guns, with weapons!"

It was Thomar.

The Sultan scrutinized the youth from head to foot, amazed at his audacity; then hastening back to his dressing-chamber, exchanged his ball dress for his royal robes, and, coming back from the inner apartments, descended into the court-yard.

The guns were already pointed at the gates, the topijis stood beside them, match in hand, impatiently awaiting the order to fire.

When the Sultan appeared in the court-yard he was at once surrounded by some hundreds of the ichoglanler, determined to defend him to the last drop of their blood. Mahmoud again recognized Thomar among them; he appeared to be the leading spirit of the band.

The Sultan beckoned to them to put back their swords in their sheaths. He commanded the topijis to extinguish their matches. Next he ordered that the gate of the Seraglio should be thrown open to the people. Then, having bidden every one to stand aside, he went alone towards the gate in his imperial robes, with a majestic bearing.

No sooner was the gate thrown open than the mob streamed into the court-yard with torches and flashing weapons in their hands, standing for a moment dumb with astonishment at the appearance of the Sultan. He was no longer ridiculous, as he had been in that foreign garb. The majestic bearing of the prince stilled the tumult for an instant, but for an instant only. The following moment a hand was extended from among the mob of rebels which tore the Sultan's caftan from his shoulder.

Mahmoud grew pale at this audacity, and this pallor was a fresh occasion of danger to him, for now he was suddenly seized from all sides. The Sultan turned, therefore, and perceiving Thomar, called to him, "Defend my harem!" and, at the same time freeing his sword-arm, he drew his sword, waved it above his hand, and, while his foes were waiting to see on whom the blow would fall, he threw the sword to Thomar, exclaiming, "Defend my son!"

The young ichoglan grasped Mahmoud's sword, and, while the captured Sultan disappeared in the mazes of the mob, he and his comrades returned to the inner court-yard, and, barricading the door, fiercely defended the position against the insurgents. He had now to show himself worthy of that sword, the sword of the Sultan.

Gradually two thousand ichoglanler and three thousand bostanjis gathered round the young hero. The Janissaries already lay in heaps before the door, which they riddled with bullets till it looked like a corn-sifter. But the youths of the Seraglio repelled every onset.

And why did not the Sultan remain with them? They would have defended him against all the world: Who knew now what had become of him? Perhaps they had killed him outright.

The Janissaries speedily perceived that they could not have done anything worse for themselves than to have brought torches with them, for thereby they were distinctly visible to the defenders of the Seraglio, and every shot that came from thence told.

"Put out the torches!" shouted Kara Makan, who was holding a huge concave buckler in front of him, and felt a third bullet pierce through the twofold layers of buffalo-hide and graze his body.

The torches went out one after another, whereupon the spacious court-yard was darkened; only the flash of firearms cast an occasional gleam of light upon the struggling mass.

It might have been two hours after midnight when suddenly there was a cessation of hostilities. Both sides were weary, and ceased firing; the Janissaries whispered amongst themselves, and at last in the midst of a deep silence, Kara Makan's thunderous voice made itself heard:

"Listen, all of ye who are inside the Seraglio. Ye are good warriors, and we are good warriors also, and it is folly for the Faithful to destroy one another. We did not take up arms to slay you and plunder the Seraglio, neither do we wish to kill the Padishah nor the heir to the throne; but we would rescue them from the hands of the traitors who surround them, and we would also deliver the realm from faithless Viziers and counsellors. Give us, therefore, the prince, the Sultan's son. Of a truth no harm shall befall him, and we will thereupon quit the court-yard of the Seraglio and trouble nobody within these doors. If, however, you will not grant our request, then Allah be merciful to all who are within these beleaguered walls."

The Kizlar-Agasi conveyed this message into the Seraglio, and besiegers and besieged awaited with rapt attention the reply of the Valideh; for the decision lay with her—she was superior in rank to all four of the Asseki sultanas.

After the lapse of a quarter of an hour the Kizlar-Agasi returned, and signified to the besiegers that the prince would be handed over to them.

The Janissaries received this message with a howl of triumph, while the ichoglanler shrugged their shoulders.

"They are not all women in there for nothing," said Thomar, savagely, to the Kizlar-Agasi, and he remained standing in the gate, that he might, at any rate, kiss the young prince's hand and whisper to him not to go.

The Janissaries relit their torches and crowded towards the gate. Inside reigned a pitch-black darkness.

Not long afterwards footsteps were audible in the dark corridor, and, escorted by two torch-bearers, the prince descended the steps. He had on the same garment which he wore when he went on horseback to the Mosque of Sophia during the Feast of Bairam. How the people had then huzzahed before him! He wore pantaloons of rose-colored silk, yellow buskins with slender heels, a green caftan embroidered with gold flowers, and a handsome yellow silk vest buttoned up to his chin. His ribbons and buttons were made so as to represent brilliant fluttering butterflies incrusted with precious stones.

On reaching the gate he beckoned to the torch-bearers to stand still, sent back the Kizlar-Agasi, and, proceeding all alone to the gate, commanded that it should be flung open.

While this was being done Thomar pressed close up to him, and seizing the prince's hand, kissed it, at the same time whispering in his ear, "Go not; we will defend you if you remain here."

The prince pressed Thomar's hand and whispered back, "I must go; you keep on defending the Seraglio!" And with that he embraced the youth and kissed him twice with great fervor.

Thomar was somewhat startled by this burning, affectionate kiss, and wondered what it meant. The darkness did not allow him to distinguish the prince's features; and when he tried to detain him once more the prince hastily disengaged himself and stepped forth from under the dark vault among the Janissaries.

Thomar covered his eyes with his hands; he did not want to see the fate of the prince at that moment. It was quite possible that the blood-thirsty might cut him down on the spot in a sudden access of fury.

The prince stepped forth among the rebels.

At that moment a cry of unbridled joy, triumph, and blood-thirstiness burst from the Janissaries. It needed but one of them to raise his hand, and the next would speedily have completed the bloodiest deed of all.

But the prince stood before them haughtily and valiantly, and, with amazing audacity, cried to them, "Down on your knees before me, ye rebels!"

At these words Thomar, with a start of terror, looked at the prince. The full light of the torches fell upon his charming face. It was not Abdul Mejid, but—Milieva! They had dressed her inside the harem in garments suitable to the Feast of Bairam, and she had come out instead of the prince, courageously, as if she had been born to it. Who was likely to notice the change? The heart of this odalisk loved to play a manly part, and it was not merely the masculine garb she wore which transformed her, but the masculine soul within her.

The Janissaries, moreover, were dumfounded by this bold attitude. This graceful, noble figure stood face to face with them and domineered the mob with a commanding look, proudly, majestically, as became a born ruler. And yet death hovered over the head of him who dared to say, "I am the prince!"

Thomar, forgetting himself, seized his sword, and would have rushed to the defence of his sister but his comrades held him back. "What would you do, unhappy wretch? Trust to Fate!"

Kara Makan, in savage defiance, approached the false prince with a drawn sword in his hand.

"On your knees before me!" cried the odalisk, and indicating where he should kneel with an imperious gesture, she looked steadily into the eyes of the savage warrior.

The ferocious figure stood hesitatingly before her. The magic of her look held the wild beast in him spellbound for an instant. His bloodshot eyes slowly drooped, his hand, with its flashing sword, sank down by his side, his knees gave way beneath him, and, falling down at the feet of the young child, he submissively murmured a salaam, kissing her hand and laying his bloody sword at her feet.

Milieva pressed her right hand on the head of the subdued rebel, looked proudly and fearlessly upon the dumb-stricken rebels, and then, raising the sword and giving it back to Kara Makan, she cried, "Go before and open a way for me!"

As if in obedience to a magic word, the crowd parted on both sides before her, and Kara Makan, with his sword over his shoulder, led the way along. The crowd, with an involuntary homage, made way for her everywhere from the Seraglio to the Seven Towers, and two torch-bearers walked by her side, between whom she marched as proudly as if she were making her triumphal progress. Nobody perceived the deception. The resemblance of the young face to that of the prince, the well-known festal raiment of the Feast of Bairam, her manly bearing, all combined to keep up the delusion, and amongst this canaille which held her in its power there was not a single dignitary who knew the prince intimately and might have detected the fraud.

The Sultan had just been thrust into the dungeon of the Seven Towers, that place of dismal memories for the Sultans and their families in general. In that octagonal chamber, whose round windows overlooked the sea, more than one mortal sigh had escaped from the lips of the descendants of Omar, whom a powerful faction or a triumphant rival had, sooner or later, condemned to death.

It was now morning, the uproar of the rebellion had died away outside, the Seraglio was no longer besieged. It was now that Kara Makan appeared before the Sultan.

The Padishah was sitting on the ground—on the bare ground. His royal robes were still upon him, a diamond aigrette sparkled in the turban of the Caliph, and there he sat upon the ground, and never took his eyes off it.

"Your majesty!" cried Kara Makan, addressing him.

The Padishah, as if he had not heard, looked apathetically in front of him, and not a muscle of his face changed.

"Sire, I stand before thee to speak to thee in the name of the Moslem people."

He might just as well have been speaking to a marble statue.

"Every storm proceeds from Allah, sire, and nothing which Allah does is done without cause. When the lightnings are scattered abroad from the hands of the angel Adramelech, is not the air beneath them heavy with curses? and when the living earth quakes beneath the towns that are upon it, shall not innocently spilled blood shake it still more? So also the Moslem people rising in rebellion is the instrument of Allah, and Allah knoweth the causes thereof. I will guard my tongue against telling these causes to thee; thou knowest them right well already, nor is it for me to reprove the anointed successor of the Prophet. But I beg thee, sire, to promise me and the people, in the name of Allah, that thou wilt do what it beseemeth the ruler of the Ottoman nation to do—promise to remedy our wrongs, and we will set thee again upon thy throne."

At these words Mahmoud fixed his eyes upon the speaker, and gazed long upon those dark features, as sinister as an eclipse of the sun. Then he arose, turned away, and replied in a low voice, hissing with contempt:

"The Sultan owes no reply to his servants."

Kara Makan's face was convulsed at these words. Scarce was he able to stifle his wrath, and he replied, in broken sentences:

"Sire, the lion is the king of the desert—but if he is in a cage—he listens to the voice of his keeper—thou knowest this hand, which hath fought for thee in many engagements—and thou knowest that whatever this hand seizeth it seizeth with a grasp of iron."

The Sultan pondered long. Then all at once he seemed to bethink him of something, for his face seemed to lose its severity, and he turned towards the Janissary leader with a mild, indulgent look.

"What, then, dost thou require?" This softened look concealed the genesis of the thought—the Janissaries must be wiped off the face of the earth. "What dost thou require?" said the Padishah, softly.

Kara Makan put on an important look, as of one who knows that the fate of empires is in his hands.

"Hearken to our desires. We are honest Mussulmans. We do not ask impossibilities. If thou canst convince us that our demands are unlawful, we renounce them; if thou canst not convince us, accomplish them."

Mahmoud's lips wore a bitter smile at this wise speech.

"I do not strive with you," he replied. "Ye command me. The Caliph of caliphs listens to his servants. Bring hither parchment and an ink-horn, and dictate to my pen what ye demand. The Sultan will be your scribe, great rebel!"

Kara Makan was not bright enough to penetrate the irony of these words; nay, rather, he felt himself flattered by the humility of the Sultan's speech. With haughty self-assurance he bared his bosom and drew forth a large roll of manuscript.

"I will save your majesty the trouble," said he to Mahmoud, smoothing out the document before him. "Behold, it is all ready. Thou hast only to write thy name beneath it."

"Will ye allow me to read it?" inquired the Sultan, with the same bitter smile; "or is it the wish of the people that I should sign it unread?"

"As your majesty pleases."

Mahmoud took up the documents one after another, and piled them up beside him as he read them.

"Ah! the appointment of a new seraskier! I will read no further. I agree, but I would know his name. Is he whom you desire fit for the post?"

"We want Kurshid," explained Kara Makan, perceiving that the Sultan had not read the document.

"And the Janissaries demand other rewards for themselves. 'Tis only natural: I grant them. They cannot be expected to storm the Seraglio for nothing. The chief treasurer will pay you whatever you require. This third article, too, I see, demands the capture of Janina. Be it so. I grant it. Most probably the whole Janissary host will want to go against Ali Pasha."

"So long as thou art at their head," said Kara Makan, somewhat disturbed. "The Janissaries are only bound to fight under the direct command of the Sultan."

"And all these other demands are equally reasonable, eh?" said the Sultan, just glancing at one or two of them.

He took up the last one, but when he had unfolded it his face darkened, and he suddenly leaped to his feet, his good-natured apathy changed into wrath and fierceness, and, striking the open document with his fist, he exclaimed, with an access of emotion:

"What's this? Are ye so bold as to expect me to sign this paper?"

Kara Makan was so well prepared for this outburst of anger on the Sultan's part that he was not in the least taken aback. With rustic stolidity he replied:

"We wish it, and we demand it."

"Do you know what is written in this document?"

"Yes; that thou must free the realm from foreigners; that thou must put the Russian ambassador Stroganov on board ship and send him home; refuse to admit French and English ships into the Bejkoz; send the Sultana Valideh far away to Damascus; and slay the Grand Vizier, the Kizlar-Aga, the Berber Pasha, and the Kapudan Pasha, and give their bodies to the people."

The Grand Signior contemptuously threw the document to the floor and trampled it beneath his feet.

"Shameless filibusterers," he cried; "not blood but money is what you want. Ye want permission not to deliver the realm, but to plunder it. And you expect the Padishah to sanction it! Did not you yourselves raise the Viziers to power? Were not you the cause of their not being able to make any use of that power? Whenever the arms of the Giaours were triumphant, were you not always the first to fly from the field of battle? And when the realm was sinking, were you not always the last to hasten to its assistance? You are no descendants, but the mere shadows of those glorious Janissaries whose names are written with letters of blood in the annals of foreign nations; but ye make but a poor and wretched figure therein. Kill me, then! I shall not be the first Sultan whom the Janissaries have murdered, but, in Allah's name I say it, I shall be the last. After me, either nobody will sit on the throne of Omar, or, if any one sits there, he will be your ruin."

The opposition of his august captive only restored the Janissary leader to his proper element. He felt much more at home with those wrathful eyes than with the previous contemptuous nonchalance. He could now give back like for like.

He picked up the crumpled document, in which were written the death-sentences of the Viziers, and, brushing off the dust, again presented it to the Sultan.

"Either sign this document or descend from the throne of the family of Omar, and we will seek us out from among the descendants of the Prophet another who shall reign in thy stead."

"Most abject of slaves! In thy pride thou knowest not what thou sayest! Death comes from Allah and none can avoid it; but who amongst the descendants of Omar would be powerful enough to seize the royal sceptre, and who would be senseless enough to desire it?"

"Look at me."

"I am looking. The sun does not soil itself by shining upon a swamp, and therefore I may look even at thee; but I see nothing in thee that would justify the adorning of thy head with a diadem so long as one of the descendants of Sulaiman the Magnificent is alive."

"Another word and thou shalt cease to live!" cried the desperado, haughtily throwing back his head before the Sultan. "Art thou aware that thy son Abdul Mejid is in our hands?"

The Sultan shuddered. His consternation at these words was written in every feature.

"My son, Abdul Mejid? Impossible!"

"So it is. The Sultana Valideh gave him up at our request."

"Oh, madness!" exclaimed the Sultan; and he began pacing to and fro.

Abdul Mejid was still a mere child. The shock of such a rebellion might easily make an epileptic of him. To deliver him into the hands of these rebels was as good as to sign his death-warrant. Even if they did not kill him outright, his nerves might suffer from their violence, and he might perish, as the two and twenty other children of Sultan Mahmoud had perished, every one of whom had died of epilepsy. Their delicate nervous constitutions had been shattered in their youth under the influence of that perpetual terror to which the children of the Caliph of caliphs had been exposed from time immemorial. What, then, might not happen to Abdul Mejid if he fell into the hands of this savage mob?

"Oh, ye are hell's own children! Ye are worse than the Giaours, worse than the Greeks, worse than the Muscovites! Ye do place your feet on the heads of your rulers!"

The despair of the Sultan emboldened the Janissary still further.

"Sign this document, or thy son shall die in our hands!"

"Miserable cowards!" moaned the Sultan. "And cowards they also who should have defended him! Did not even his mother defend him? Was it necessary to give him up?"

"He is in no danger," said Kara Makan; "nay, he is in a safe place. It rests with thee to receive him back into thy arms;" and he shoved towards him again the soiled and crumpled manuscript.

The Padishah, overcome by the shock of his own feelings, humiliated by the sense of his own soft-heartedness, tottered to the wall, and when his groping hands came in contact with the cold marble he collapsed altogether, and leaning against it, he pressed his burning temples to the cold stone. The Janissary might now say whatever he would, the Sultan neither listened to nor answered him.

At last the rough warrior, who had jumped so suddenly into power, shouted angrily to his comrades, who were cooling their heels outside, "Bring hither the prince!"

The Sultan heard the pattering of many footsteps in the corridor outside, and the clashing of swords mingled with the murmuring of voices, but he did not look in that direction.

"Behold!" cried Kara Makan, advancing towards him, "here is thy son! A drawn sword hovers above his head! Choose either to see thine own name at the foot of that paper or his head at thy feet!"

Mahmoud trembled, but he answered nothing, nor did he turn his head.

"Write, or thy son dies!" cried a number of the Janissaries, suddenly.

Then a musical, familiar voice responded amidst the wild uproar:

"My father! hearken not unto them! Let them slay me if they be valiant enough, but chaffer not with thy slaves!"

Mahmoud looked up in astonishment at this well-known voice, and saw before him a handsome figure in the prince's garments and with a proud and majestic countenance; but that face, though familiar to him and very dear, was not his son's face. Ah, it was Milieva!

The odalisk perceived that Mahmoud's features softened, that he looked tenderly upon her; and as if she feared that the Sultan might yield out of compassion towards her, she hastily turned her flaming face to the Janissaries and exclaimed:

"Ye blood-thirsty dogs of Samound! who bay down the sun from the heavens, accomplish your bloody work! Forward, ye valiant heroes, with whose backs alone the enemy is familiar, fall upon me in twos and threes, if any one of you has not the courage to plunge his steel single-handed into the heart of the last scion of Omar's stock! My death will not constrain the Sultan to bargain with you. Kill me while you have power over me, for if ever I have power over you I will not weep before you, as ye have seen Mahmoud and Selim weep; but I will so utterly destroy you that even he who wears a garment like unto yours, even he who shall mention your name, shall pronounce his own doom."

The infuriated rebels raised their flashing swords above the head of the presumptuous child at these menacing words; another moment and she would have lain in the dust. But Mahmoud arose, spurned them aside from the prince, as they supposed him to be, and taking from the hands of Kara Makan the document and writing materials, signed his name beneath it. Milieva seized the Sultan's hand to prevent him from writing, but he tenderly kissed her on the forehead and gently whispered, "Rather would I lose the whole world than thee," and with that he placed in the hands of the Janissaries the subscribed death-warrants.

After obtaining these concessions, the rebels grew calmer, the Sultan proclaimed amnesty for all offenders, appointed the chief brawlers to high offices, and distributed money amongst them from the treasury.

Peace was thus restored. The Sultan and the sham prince returned to the Seraglio, accompanied all the way by a vast throng, and the whole square by the fountains of Ibrahim was filled by the well-known turbans of the Janissaries, who, in the joy of their insulting triumph, shouted long life to the humiliated Padishah.

Mahmoud surveyed the huzzaing throng, where, man to man, they stood so tightly squeezed together that nothing could be distinguished but a sea of heads. And the Sultan thought to himself, "What a fine thing it would be to sweep all those heads away at one stroke!"