* * * * *

“Staffir Allah!  God forgive me! but are you not laughing at our beards, old scarecrow?  What think you, Mustapha?” continued the pacha, turning to him.  “What is all this but lies?”

“Lies!” screamed the old woman.  “Lies! you tell me they are lies!  Well, well—­the time has been.  Pacha, after what I have suffered by telling the truth all my life, it is hard, in my old age, to be told that I lie; but you shall be convinced,” and the old woman put her hands up to the shrivelled, pendent skin of her neck, and stretching it out smooth, showed a deep blue mark, which encircled it like a necklace.  “Now are you satisfied?”

The pacha nodded his head to Mustapha, as if convinced; and then said, “You may proceed.”

“Yes, I may proceed; but I tell you, pacha, that if you doubt what I say once more, I will return your twenty pieces of gold, and hold my tongue.  I proved that I could do it as a young woman, and we become more obstinate as we get old.”

“That is no lie,” observed Mustapha.  “Continue, old woman, and we will not interrupt you with doubts again.”

* * * * *

My brother, who had watched every motion of the sultan’s, and who had determined to reveal all rather than that I should suffer, when he perceived the fatal mistake, which he did not till some moments afterwards, uttered a loud cry, and attempted to burst from his guards.  Roused by the cry, the sultan looked up, and perceived what had taken place.  In a moment he darted from his throne, and was kneeling by me with frantic exclamations.  The mutes hastily tore away the bowstring, but I was, to all appearance, dead.

“Yes, sultan, well you may rave,” exclaimed my brother; “for you have good cause.  You have destroyed one who, as she declared with her last breath, was most faithful and most true.  I acknowledge the conspiracy.  I told her my intentions, and she thought that she had succeeded in preventing me, for I promised by the three to abandon my design.  She has been faithful both to you and to me, for she believed that, although accused, I had atoned for my fault by repentance.”

The sultan looked earnestly at my brother, but made no answer.  He embraced me, at one moment bursting into tears, in the next calling for assistance.  I was removed to my apartments, and after some time, the physicians succeeded in restoring me to life; but I was for many days confused and dizzy in the brain, during which time every attention and care was lavished on me.  One evening I felt sufficiently recovered to speak, and I demanded of my attendants what had taken place.  They informed me that the mutes, who had mistaken the signal, had been impaled, and that the Janissaries had risen and demanded my brother, whose execution had been deferred by the sultan; but that on the commotion taking place, by order of the grand vizier,—­my brother had been executed, and his head thrown out to the rebellious troops, who had been dispersed, and had since been brought to subjection, and some hundreds of the ringleaders had been executed.  I turned away at this intelligence, for I loved my noble but misguided brother.  The movement occasioned excruciating pain, which arose from the deep wound made by the bowstring in my neck.