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.