“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!”