you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate girl.  Report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force should make him comply;—­that, on farther hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the Aga’s house, you would shoot him dead.  On this, the man turned about and went with you to the governor’s house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty, to procure her pardon on condition of her leaving Athens.  I was told that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to Thebes, where she found a safe asylum.  Such is the story I heard, as nearly as I can recollect it at present.  Should you wish to ask me any further questions about it, I shall be very ready and willing to answer them.  I remain, my dear Byron,

     “Yours, very sincerely,

     “SLIGO.

     “I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but I am
     so hurried with the preparations for my journey, that you must
     excuse it.”

* * * * *

Of the prodigal flow of his fancy, when its sources were once opened on any subject, The Giaour affords one of the most remarkable instances,—­this poem having accumulated under his hand, both in printing and through successive editions, till from four hundred lines, of which it consisted in his first copy, it at present amounts to nearly fourteen hundred.  The plan, indeed, which he had adopted, of a series of fragments,—­a set of “orient pearls at random strung,”—­left him free to introduce, without reference to more than the general complexion of his story, whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, could collect; and how little fettered he was by any regard to connection in these additions, appears from a note which accompanied his own copy of the paragraph commencing “Fair clime, where every season smiles,”—­in which he says, “I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the following lines, but will, when I see you—­as I have no copy.”

Even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy afterwards poured a fresh infusion,—­the whole of its most picturesque portion, from the line “For there, the Rose o’er crag or vale,” down to “And turn to groans his roundelay,” having been suggested to him during revision.  In order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes labour as the price of perfection, I shall here extract a few verses from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the form they wear at present[63] we may learn to appreciate the value of these after-touches of the master.