Circassia, the land of beauty and oppression, whose noble valleys produce such miracles of female loveliness, and whose level plains are the vivid scenes of such terrible struggles; where a brave, unconquerable peasantry have, for a very long period, defied the combined powers of the whole of Russia, and whose daughters, though the children of such brave sires, are yet taught and reared from childhood to look forward to a life of slavery in a Turkish harem as the height of their ambition—Circassia, the land of bravery, beauty and romance, is one of the least known, but most interesting spots in all Europe.
Whether it be that the genial air of its hills and vales possesses power to beautify the forms and faces of its daughters, or that they inherit those charms from their ancestors by right of blood, we may not say; but from the farthest dates, it has ever supplied the Sultan and his people with the lovely beings who have rendered of the harems of the Mussulmen so celebrated for the charms they enshrine. Its daughters have been the mothers of the highest dignitaries of the courts, and Sultan Mahomet himself was born of a Circassian mother.
Unendowed with mental culture, Providence has seemed, in a degree, to compensate to the girls of Circassia for want of intellectual brilliancy, by rendering them physically beautiful almost beyond description. No wonder, then, educated, or rather uneducated as they are, that the visions of their childhood, the dreams of their girlish days, and even the aspirations of their riper years, should be in the anticipation of a life of independence, luxury and love, in those fairy-like homes that skirt the Bosphorus at Constantinople.
Being from their earliest childhood taught by their parents to look upon this destiny as an enviable one, these fair girls do not fail to appreciate and fully realize the captivating charms that Heaven has so liberally endowed them with, and wait with trembling breasts and hopeful hearts for the period when they shall change the humble scenes of their existence, from the long and rugged ravines of the Caucasus, for the glittering and gaudy palaces of the Mussulmen, in the Valley of Sweet Waters, or on the banks of the Golden Horn.
In former years, the Trebizond merchantman took on board his cargo of young and lovely Circassians, and navigated the Black Sea with a flowing sheet and a flag flying at his peak, which told his business and the commerce that he was engaged in; now the trade is contraband, and the slave ship has to pick its way cautiously about the island of Crimea, and keep a sharp lookout to avoid the Russian war steamers that skirt the entire coast, and keep up a never-ceasing blockade from the Georgian shore to the ancient port of Anapa.
This latter place was, for centuries, one of vital importance to the Circassians, being their general depot or rendezvous for the trade between themselves and the ports that lay at the other extreme of the Black Sea. It was the point where they were always sure to find a ready market for their females, receiving as payment in exchange from the Turks, fire-arms, ammunition and gold. But at last the Russians, assuming a virtue that did not actuate them, stormed and took the fort, ostensibly to put a stop to this trade, as opposed to the principles it involved, but in reality to stop the supplies that enabled the brave mountaineers to oppose them so successfully.
In the country lying immediately back of Anapa, there is a succession of hills and vales of surpassing loveliness, presenting the extremes of wild and rugged mountain scenery, joining fertile plains and beautiful valleys, where, among fragrant and luxuriant groves, many a fair creature has grown up to be brought to the slave market and sold for a price. Vales where brave and stalwart youths have been nurtured and taught the dexterous use of arms, being ever educated to look upon the Russians as their natural enemies, and also to believe that any revenge exercised upon their Moscovite neighbors was not only commendable, but holy and just.
In a valley opening towards the north, a short league above the port of Anapa, at the time of our story there dwelt two families, named Gymroc and Adegah. Both these families traced their ancestry back to noble chiefs, who, in the days of Circassian glory and independence, were at the head of large and powerful tribes of their countrymen. These families, from the fact that they were thus descended, were still held by the mountaineers who lived about them in reverence, and their words had double weight in council when important subjects were discussed; and indeed the present head of each was often chosen to lead them on to the almost constantly recurring battles and bloody guerilla contests that transpired between the mountaineers and their enemies, the Russian Cossacks.
The family of Gymroc was blessed with a fair daughter, an only child, who, though living among a people who were so universally endowed with loveliness in their gentler sex, was famed for her transcendent loveliness far and near, and the youths of the neighboring valleys and plains sighed in their hearts to think that the fairest flower in all Circassia was but blooming to shed its ripened fragrance and loveliness in the harem of some dark and bearded Mahometan, to be the toy of some rich and heartless Turk.
One there was among the young mountaineers, Aphiz Adegah, whose whole life and soul seemed bound up in the lovely Komel, as she was called. Neither was more than eighteen; indeed Komel was not so old, for but sixteen full summers had passed over her head. They had grown up together from very childhood, played together, worked together, sharing each other's burthens, and mutually aiding each other; now quietly watching the sheep and goats upon the hillsides, and now working side by side in the fields, content and happy, so they were always together.
Komel was almost too beautiful. With every grace and delicacy of outline that has, for centuries, rendered her sex so famed in her native land, she added also a sweet, natural intelligence, which, though all uncultivated, was yet ever beaming from her eyes, and speaking forth from her face. Her form possessed a most captivating voluptuous fullness, without once trespassing upon the true lines of female delicacy. Her large and lustrous eyes were brilliant yet plaintive, her lips red and full, and the features generally of a delicate Grecian cast. Her hair was of that dark, glossy hue, that defies comparison, and was heavy and luxuriant in its fullness.
Some one has said that no one can write real poetry until he has known the sting of unhappiness; and sure it is that beauty ever lacks that moss-rose finish that tender melancholy throws about it, until it has known what sorrow is. Komel had been called to mourn, and melancholy had thrown about her a gentle glow of plaintiveness, as a grateful angel added another grace to the rose that had sheltered its slumber, by a shroud of moss.
While she was yet but a little child, her only brother, but little older than herself, and whom she loved with all the sisterly tenderness of her young heart, had strayed away from home to the seaside, and been drowned. From that day she had sorrowed for his loss, and even now as memory recalled her early playmate, the tears would dim her eyes, nor did her spirits seem ever entirely free from the grief that had imbued them at her brother's loss. This hue of tender melancholy was in Komel only an additional beauty, as we have said, and lent its witchery to her other charms.
To say that Komel was insensible to all her personal advantages would be unreasonable, and supposing her not possessed of an ordinary degree of perception. She knew that she was fair, nay, that she was more beautiful than any of the youthful companions of her native valley; but whatever others might have anticipated for her, she had never looked forward, as nearly all of her sex do, in Circassia, to a splendid foreign home across the Black Sea. No, no; her young and loving heart had already made its choice of him she had so long and tenderly loved,—him who had stepped in when there was that vacant spot in her heart that her brother's loss had left, and filled it; for he had been both brother and lover to her from the tenderest years of childhood. They had probably thought little upon the subject of their relation to each other, and had said less, until Komel was nearly sixteen, and then it was only in that tender and hopeful strain of a happy future, and that future to be shared by each other.
Aphiz was as noble and generous in spirit as he was handsome in person. Nature had cast him in a sinewy, yet graceful form; his native mountain air and vigorous habits had ripened his physical developments to an early manliness and already had he more than once charged the enemy upon the open plains of his native land. His falchion had glanced in the tide of battle, and his stout arm had dealt many a fatal blow to the Cossack forces, that sought to conquer and possess themselves of all Circassia. It was a stern school for the young mountaineer, and it was well, as he grew up in this manner, that there was always the tender and chastening association before his mind, of his love for the gentle and beautiful girl who had given her young heart into his keeping. He needed such promptings to enable him to combat the rough associations of the camp, and the hardening duty of a soldier in time of war.
It was, therefore, to her side that he came for that true happiness that emanates from the better feelings of the heart; by her side that he enjoyed the quiet but grand scenery of their native hills and valleys, looking, as it were, through each other's eyes at every beauty, either of thought or that lay tangible before them.
Though both Komel and Aphiz had been thrice happy in their constant intercourse in the days of childhood, though those days, so well remembered, had been to them like a pleasant morning filled with song, or the gliding on of a summer stream, and were marked only by truthfulness and peaceful content, still both realized as they now entered upon a riper age of youth, that they were far happier than ever before, that they loved each other better, and all things about them. It is an error to suppose that childhood is the happiest period of life, though philosophers tell us so, for a child's pleasures are like early spring flowers—pretty, but pale, and fleeting, and scentless. The rich and fragrant treasures of the heart are not developed so early; they come with life's summer, and thus it was with these Circassian youths.
Growing up daily and hourly together to that period when love holds strongest sway over the heart, both felt how happily they could kneel before Heaven and be pronounced one and inseparable; but Aphiz was poor and had no home to offer a bride, besides which, the character of the times was sufficient to prevent their more prudent parents from yielding their consent to such an arrangement as their immediate union, though they offered no opposition to their intimacy.
Komel was of such a happy and cheerful disposition at heart that she scattered pleasure always about her, but Aphiz's very love rendered him thoughtful and perhaps at times a little melancholy; for he feared that some future chance might in an unforeseen, way rob him of her who was so ineffably dear to him. He did not exactly fear that Komel's parents would sell her to go to Constantinople, though they were now, since war and pestilence had swept away lands, home and title, poor enough; and yet there was an undefined fear ever acting in his heart as to her he loved. Sometimes when he realized this most keenly, he could not help whispering his forebodings to Komel herself.
"Nay, dear Aphiz," she would say to him, with a gentle smile upon her countenance, "let not that shadow rest upon thy brow, but rather look with the sun on the bright side of everything. Am I not a simple and weak girl, and yet I am cheerful and happy, while thou, so strong, so brave and manly, art ever fearing some unknown ill."
"Only as it regards thee, Komel, do I fear anything."
"That's true, but I should inspire thee with joy, not fear and uneasiness."
"It is only the love I bear thee, dearest, that makes me so jealous, so anxious, so fearful lest some chance should rob me of thee forever," he would reply tenderly.
"It is ever thus; what is there to fear, Aphiz?"
"I know not, dearest. No one feared your gentle brother's loss years ago, and yet one day he woke happy and cheerful, and went forth to play, but never came back again."
"You speak too truly," answered the beautiful girl with a sigh, "and yet because harm came to him, it is no reason that it should come to me, dear Aphiz."
"Still the fear that aught may happen to separate us is enough to make me sad, Komel."
"Father says, that it is troubles which never happen that chiefly make men miserable," answered the happy-spirited girl, as she laid her head pleasantly upon Aphiz's arm.
They stood at her father's door in the closing hour of the day when they spoke thus, and hardly had Aphiz's words died upon his lips when the attention of both was directed towards the heavy, dark form of a mountain-hawk, as it swept swiftly through the air, and poising itself for an instant, marked where a gentle wood dove was perched upon a projecting bough in the valley. Komel laid her hand with nervous energy upon Aphiz's arm. The hawk was beyond the reach of his rifle, and realizing this he dropped its breach once more to his side. A moment more and the bolder bird was bearing its prey to its mountain nest, there to feed upon it innocent body. Neither Komel nor Aphiz uttered one word, but turned sadly away from the scene that had seemed so applicable to the subject of their conversation. He bade her a tender good night, but as the young mountaineer wended his way down the valley he was sad at heart, and asked himself if Komel might not be that dove.
So earnestly was he impressed with this idea, after the conversation which had just occurred, that twice he turned his steps and resolved to seek the lofty cliff where the hawk had flown, as though he could yet release the poor dove; then remembering himself, he would once more press the downward path to the valley.
It was not to be presumed that Komel should not have found other admirers among the youths of her native valley. She had touched the hearts of many, though being no coquette, they soon learned to forget her, seeing how much her heart was already another's. This, we say, was generally the case, but there was one exception, in the person of a young man but little older than Aphiz, whose name was Krometz. He had loved Komel truly, had told her so, and had been gently refused her own affection by her; but still he persevered, until the love he had borne her had turned to something very unlike love, and he resolved in his heart that if she loved not him, neither should she marry Aphiz.
At one time when Aphiz was in the heat of battle, charging upon the Russian infantry, suddenly he staggered, reeled and fell, a bullet had passed into his chest near the heart. His comrades raised him up and brought him off the battle-field, and after days of painful suffering he recovered, and was once more as well as ever, little dreaming that the bullet which had so nearly cost him his life came from one of his own countrymen. Could the ball have been examined, it would have fitted exactly Krometz's rifle!
Though the rifle shot had failed, Krometz's enmity had in no way abated; he only watched for an opportunity more successfully to effect the object that now seemed to be the motive of his life. Before Komel he was all gentleness, and affected the highest sense of honor, but at heart he was all bitterness and revenge.
Another chapter will show the treacherous and deep game that the rejected lover played.
It was on a fair summer's evening that a beautiful English built craft, after having beat up the Black Sea all day against the ever prevailing a north-cast wind, now gathered in her light sails and barely kept steerageway by still spreading her jib and mainsail. With the setting sun the breeze had lulled also to rest, and there was but a cap full now coming from off the mountains of the Caucasus, just enough to keep the little clipper steady in hand.
It would be difficult to define the exact class to which the rig of this craft would make her belong, there was so much that was English in the hull and raking step of her masts, while the rigging, and the way in which she was managed, smacked so strongly of the Mediterranean that her nation also might have puzzled one familiar with such a subject. The lofty spread of canvas, the jib, flying-jib and fore-staysail, that are rarely worn save by the larger class of merchantmen, gave rather an odd appearance to a craft that could count hardly more than an hundred tons measurement.
Besides her fore and mainsail, and those already named, the schooner, for so we must call her, carried two heavy, but graceful topsails upon her fore and mainmasts, and even a jigger sail or spanker and gaff above it, on a slender spur rigged from the quarter deck. Altogether the schooner with her various appurtenances, resembled such a yacht as some of the English noblemen sail in the channel and about the Isle of Man in the sporting season.
The schooner was not unobserved from the shore, and a careful observer could have noticed a group of persons that were evidently regarding her with no common interest from the landing just above the harbor of Anapa.
"That must be the craft that has been so long expected," said one of the group, "and we had best get our girls ready at once to put on board before the morning."
"This comes in a bad time, for the steamer should be here before nightfall."
"That's true; as she doesn't seem inclined to run in too close, perhaps she knows it."
"What was the signal agreed upon?" asked the first speaker of his companion, who was silently regarding the schooner.
"A red flag at the foretopmast head, and there it goes. Yes, it is here sure enough."
"How like a witch she looks."
"They say she will outsail anything between here and Gibraltar, in any wind."
"What does that mean? she's going about."
"Sure enough, and up goes her foresail, they work with a will and are in a hurry."
"She don't like the looks of something on the coast," said the other.
The fact was, while the schooner lay under the easy sail we have described, just off the port of Anapa, the little Russian government steamer that plies between Odessa and the ports along the Circassian coast held by the emperor's troops, hove in sight, having just come down the Sea of Azoff through the Straits of Yorkcale. Her dark line of smoke was discovered by those on board the schooner, before she had doubled the headland of Tatman, and it was very plain, that, let the schooner's purpose be what it might, she desired to avoid all unnecessary observation, and especially that of the steamer.
A single movement of the helm while the mainsail sheet was eased away, and the schooner brought the gentle night breeze that was still setting from the north and east off the Georgian shore, right aft, and quietly hoisting her foresail, the two were set wing and wing, and a sea bird could not have skimmed with a more easy and graceful motion over the deep waters that glanced beneath her hull, than she did now. If the steamer had desired she might have overhauled the schooner, but it would have taken all night to do it with that leading wind in her favor; and so, after looking towards the clipper craft with her bows for a moment, the steamer again held on her course.
"Too swift of wing for that smoke pipe of yours," said one of the Circassians who had been watching the evolutions of the two crafts from the shore.
"The steamer has put her helm down and gives it up for it bad job," said another, as her black bow came once more to look towards the port of Anapa.
"She will be off before night sets in, and we shall have the schooner back again."
This was in fact the policy of those on board the schooner; for no sooner did she find herself unpursued than she hauled her wind, jibed her foresail to starboard and looked down, towards the coast of Asia Minor, until the moon crept up from behind the mountains of the Caucasus as though it had come from a bath in the Caspian Sea beyond, when the schooner was closer hauled on the other trick, and bore up again for the harbor of Anapa.
We have said that the little clipper numbered some hundred tons, but though her appearance would indicate this to be the case, yet your thorough-bred sailor would have marked how stiffly she bore so much top hamper, and would have judged more correctly by the depth of water that the schooner evidently drew. It was plain that she was deep and much heavier than she looked. A few sprightly Greek youths, in their picturesque costume were dispersed here and there in the waist and on the forecastle, while two or three persons wearing the same dress and evidently of that nation, were talking together in a group upon the weather-side of the quarter-deck.
As the hours drew towards midnight, the schooner at length opened communication with the land by means of signal lanterns, and immediately after boats commenced to ply between the clipper and the shore, and continued to do so for several hours. It was plain enough to any one who knew the usages and trade of these waters, that the schooner was preparing to run a cargo of Circassian girls, the trade having been, as we have already shown, made contraband by the Russians.
At last the clipper seemed to have received all on board that she expected in the shape of passengers, but still stood off and on for some reason until the breaking day began to tinge the mountain tops beyond Anapa; when a last boat with five persons, one of whom was a female, came down to the clipper which was thrown in the wind's eye long enough for those to get on board, or rather for three of them to do so; and then, as the other two pulled back to the shore, the schooner gradually came round under the force of her topsail, and one sail after another was distended and sheeted home until she looked to those on shore as though enveloped in canvas, and drove over the waters like a flying cloud.
One of those who pulled away from the schooner as she lay her course, would have been recognized by the reader as Krometz; and now half way to the landing he motioned his companion to cease rowing, while he paused himself and looked after the receding clipper with a strange medley of expression pictured in his face.
"Give way, give way," said his companion at last, somewhat impatiently; "one would think, by the way you look seaward, that you would like to head in that direction instead of pulling into the harbor."
"You are right, comrade. I do wish that yonder clipper was carrying me away from here."
"You are a queer fellow, Krometz, to let that girl make you so unhappy, but she's off now, and will probably bring up in some Turkish harem, where she will end her days. Not so bad a fate either," continued the oarsman. "Surrounded by every luxury the heart could wish or the imagination conceive, it's a better lot than either yours or mine."
"Well, say no more of this, and remember the utmost secrecy is to be observed, for that tiger of an Aphiz will hunt us to death if he does but suspect that we had a hand in the business."
"Our disguise was sufficient," said the other, "and by-the-way, we may as well get rid of this black stuff now;" and as he spoke he dashed the water from alongside upon his face and hands, and removed a coat of black from them.
"Now give way again; let us get in, and separate before any one is stirring abroad."
Leaving Krometz and his companion to pursue their own business, and the clipper craft with her course laid for the Sea of Marmora, we will, with the reader, return once more to the mountain side where we met Komel and Aphiz.
In time of peace, or rather when there was no open outbreak between the Circassians and the Russian forces, Aphiz Adegah passed his time in hunting among the rugged hills and cliffs, and with the early morn was abroad with his gun strapped to his back, and in his hand the long iron-pointed staff that helped him to climb the otherwise inaccessible rocks of the mountain's sides. Thus equipped, he came, in the morning referred to above, to the cottage of Komel's parents, but, instead of the cheerful, happy welcome that usually greeted him on such occasions, he beheld consternation and misery written in the father's face, while the mother wept as though her heart would break.
"What means this strange scene?" asked the young hunter, hastily. "Where is Komel?"
"Alas! gone, gone," sighed both.
"Gone!"
"Ay, gone forever."
"What mean you? whither has she gone? what has happened to render you so miserable?"
"Alas, Aphiz; Komel has gone to be the star of some proud Turkish harem," said the father.
"And with your consent?"
"No! O, no!"
"Nor by her own free will, that I know," he continued, quickly.
"Alas! no; this night she was stolen from us, and we saw her borne away before our very eyes."
"Was there no one by to strike a blow for her, no one to render you aid?"
"Yes, one there was, an honest friend who lives in the next cottage. He was aroused by the noise, and outraged by the violence he beheld, he rushed upon the thieves, but they struck him bleeding and dead to the earth. It was a terrible sight and poor Komel saw it as they carried her away, and uttered such a fearful, piercing scream that it seems to ring in our cars even now. She fainted then in their arms, and we saw her no more."
"Heaven guard her!" said Aphiz, with inward anguish expressed in his face.
"Amen!" said the aged father, with a deep, heartfelt sigh, full of sorrow.
This told the whole story of the previous night, and the last boat that put off from, the shore for the clipper schooner contained Komel as a prisoner, insensible to all about, abducted by her own countrymen, incited by the revengeful spirit of Krometz. Actuated by the vilest motives himself, he had persuaded a companion, as we have seen, by a small bribe and the representation that Komel would in reality be better off than with her parents, to aid him in his object. Krometz had not hesitated to receive the handsome sum that one so beautiful as Komel could not fail to command.
Aphiz was almost too miserable to be able to find words to express his feelings. A bitter tear stole down his sunburnt check as he saw the mother's grief, but a stern flash of the eye was also visible in the expression of his face. He sought at once the highest cliff beyond the cottage, and in the distant, far-off horizon, could dimly make out the white canvas of the slave cutter, no bigger than a sea-bird, on the skirts of the horizon. He sat down in the bitterness of his anguish, alone and heart-broken, and then he remembered the scene of the previous evening, how they both together had seen the hawk pounce down and carry off in its talons the poor wood dove.
That scene, so suggestive to his mind, was not without its meaning. It was the forerunner of the calamity under which his heart now grieved so bitterly. Aphiz Adegah's life had been a bold one, he knew no fear. The air of his native hills was not freer than his own spirit and as he looked off once more at the tiny white speck in the distance that marked the spot where Komel was, his resolution was instantly made, and he swore to follow and rescue her.
It was but natural that the young mountaineer should desire to find out the agency by which that evil business had been consummated. He knew very well that such a plan as Komel's abduction could not have been perpetrated without the aid of parties that knew her and her home, but never for one moment did he suspect Krometz. He had ever professed the warmest friendship for both him and Komel, and he was deemed honest. But during the melee, when the honest mountaineer had rushed to Komel's rescue, and had received the fatal blow, her parents heard a voice that they recognized, and both exclaimed, "Can that voice be Krometz's!"
This was afterwards made known to Aphiz, and with this clue, though he could scarcely believe that there was the possibility of fact or correctness in the surmise, he sought his pretended friend. He charged him with the evidence and its inference, and bade him speak and say if this was true.
"It matters not, friend Aphiz, since she is gone, how she came to go."
"This answer," said the young mountaineer, "is but another evidence against thee."
"Do you pretend to call me to an account, Aphiz? You are but a boy, while I have already reached the full age of manhood. Think not, because you were more successful with that girl, than I, that you can lord it over me. I shall answer no further charges from you."
"Krometz, your guilt speaks out in every line of your face," said the excited Aphiz. "Meet me at sunset behind the signal rock on the cliff, and we will settle this affair together."
"I will neither meet thee, nor account to thee for aught I may have done."
"Then, as true as to-morrow's sun shall rise, with this good rifle I will shoot you to the heart. I shall be there at the sunset hour; fail me, and to-morrow you shall die."
Krometz knew well with whom he had to deal; he knew if he met Aphiz, as he proposed, there would be a chance for his life, but if he failed him, he feared the unerring aim of his rifle. He was no coward—both of them had faced the enemy together, but he lacked the moral courage that is far more sustaining than mere dogged bravery, or contempt for immediate danger. Thus influence, at sunset he kept the appointment.
The young mountaineer had been taught this mode of resort to arms by the Russian and Polish officers who had been thrown much among them. They had no seconds, but fought alone, starting back to back, walking forward five paces, wheeling and firing together. The position was on the brink of a precipice, and he who fell would be hurled at once down an immense depth. Aphiz was desperate, Krometz reckless; they fired and the body of the latter fell over the cliff. Aphiz was unharmed.
In a moment after he realized his situation, has act, however just, had made him a fugitive, and he must fly at once from those scenes of his boyish love and happiness.
Turning from the mountain scenes we have described, let us back once more to Constantinople, and direct our footsteps up the fragrant valley where the Barbyses threads its meandering course. Here let us look once more into the gilded cage that holds the Sultan's favorites, where art had exhausted itself to form a fairy-like spot, as beautiful as the imagination could conceive. We find here, once more, amid the fragrant atmosphere and the playing fountains, the form of Lalla, and by her side again that form, before which all the tribes of the faithful kneel in humble submission. It was strange what a potent charm the dumb but beautiful Circassian had thrown about herself. It seemed as though some fairy circle enshrined her, within which no harm might possibly reach the gentle slave.
An observant person could have noticed also a third party in that presence, though he was some distance from Lalla's side, lying upon the ground, so near the jet of a fountain, that the spray dampened his face. It was the idiot. To the monarch, or his slave, he appeared unconscious of aught save the play of water; but one nearer to him would have seen that no movement of either escaped the now watchful eye of the boy. Was it possible that he possessed a degree of reason, after all, and more than half assumed the strange guise that seemed to enshroud his wits.
Now he tossed the pure white pebble stones into the playing waters, and saw them carried up by the force of the jets, and now half rising to his elbow, startled the gold and silver fish in the basin by a tiny shower of gravel, but still with a strange tenacity, ever watching both the Sultan and his slave, though not appearing to do so.
A change had come over that proud, eastern prince. He had been awakened to fresh impulses, and a new and joyful sense of realization; the sentiments that actuated him were novel, indeed, to his breast. From childhood he had been taught by every association to look upon the gentler sex as toys, merely, of his own; but here was one, yes, and the first one, too, who had caused him to realize that she had a soul, a heart, a brilliant, natural intelligence of mind, that surprised and delighted him. Besides this, the fact of her sad physical misfortune had, no doubt, increased his tender and respectful solicitude, and thus altogether he was most peculiarly situated, as it regarded his dumb slave.
The stern warrior, the relentless foe, the severe judge, and the pampered monarch, all were merged in the man, when by her side—and Sultan Mahomet, for the first time in his life, felt that he loved!
As we have shown, it was not the headstrong promptings of passion that actuated him—far from it; for had the monarch been heedless of her love and respect in return, how easily might he have commanded any submission, on her part, that he could wish. The truth was, he feared to risk the love he now felt that he coveted so strongly, by any overt act, and thus day by day her life stole quietly on, and lie was still ever tender and respectful, ever thoughtful for her comfort or pleasure, and ever assiduous to make her feel contented and happy with her lot.
It would have been most unnatural had not Lalla experienced, in return for all this kindness, the warmest sentiments of gratitude, and this she showed in the expression of her dark, dreamy eyes, at all times; and to speak truly, the Sultan felt himself amply repaid by her gentle gratitude and tender smiles.
In the mean time, as days and weeks passed on, silently registering the course of life, the chill of homesickness, which had been so keen and saddening at first, wore gradually away from the radiant face of the slave, though she thought no less earnestly and dearly of her friends and her home, far away in the Circassian hills; yet absence and time had robbed her grief of its keenness, while the easy and luxuriant mode of living that she enjoyed had again restored the roundness of her beautiful form, had once more imparted the rose to her check, and the elasticity of her childhood's day to her movements. In short, she who was so lovely when she entered the harem, had now grown so much more so, that the companions who surrounded her, with sentiments almost akin to awe, declared her too beautiful to live, and sagely hinting that ere long she would hear the songs of those spirits who chant around Allah's throne.
All this had wrought a corresponding change in the heart of the Sultan; indeed his affection and, interest for Lalla had even more than kept pace with this improvement in her appearance; and now it was for the first time since she came there, that those scarcely less beautiful Georgians, the petted favorites, heretofore, of the monarch, now evinced feelings of envy that it was impossible to disguise. They saw but too plainly that the Sultan cared only for the dumb slave, had smiles for no one else, and that he was ever by her side when within the precincts of the harem.
Nor is it to be wondered at that they should feel thus. In a country where personal beauty constitutes the marketable value of a woman, it was but natural, that they should be led to prize this endowment, and perhaps also in the end to dislike all who should successfully contest the palm with them in this respect. Still, so sweet was Lalla's disposition, so yielding and considerate, that they could not openly express the feelings that brooded in their breasts; nor had one unkind word yet been expressed towards her, since the first hour that she had entered the Sultan's household.
Leaving the dumb slave thus bound by silken cords, thus chained in a gilded cage, we will once more turn to the fortunes of the lone and weary traveller, whom we left in the Armenian quarter of the capital.
He was evidently a wanderer, and, save the liberal means he had received from the hands of the grateful Turk whom he had so providentially rescued near the forest borders of Belgrade, he was poor indeed. Yet with strict economy this purse had served him well, and for a long while; whatever his errand in this capital might be, he seemed to keep it sacredly to himself, and to wander day after day, front morning until night, here, there, and everywhere, now in the slave market, now in the opium bazaar, now among the silk merchants, now among the splendid and picturesque dwellings along the banks of the Bosphorus, and now in this quarter, now in that, seemingly in search of some one he hoped to find; but as night returned, he, too, came to his temporary home, tired, dejected and unhappy.
But day after day and week after week had at last entirely emptied his purse of its golden contents, and he stood now very near the spot where we first introduced him to the reader. The purse was in his hand, and he was consulting with himself now as to what course he should pursue for the future, when his eyes rested once more upon the jewelled receptacle he held in his hand. He had often marked its richness, and the thought came across him that he might realize a small sum by selling it at some of the fancy bazaars, and he had even made up his mind to adopt this plan, when he suddenly remembered, for the first time, that the Turk had told him to present it at the gates of the seraglio gardens when he needed further aid.
"Fool that I have been!" ejaculated the wanderer, vehemently, "perhaps I might not only obtain the necessary pecuniary aid from him, but also that information which I so sadly but earnestly seek. Why should I, until this late hour, have forgotten his proffered aid? I will away to him at once, tell him my sad history, and beseech him to lend me the assistance I require." Thus saying, he turned his eyes towards the little point of land that jets out towards Asia from the Turkish city, known as Seraglio Point, a fairy-like cluster of gardens and palaces marking the spot.
His quick, nervous step soon brought him to the gilded portal that formed the entrance to the splendid gardens beyond, and through the sentinel who guarded the spot he summoned an officer of the household, to whom he showed the purse, telling him that he had received it from the owner as a token of friendship, and that he had bidden him, when necessity should dictate, to show it at the seraglio gates, and he would be admitted to his presence.
"God is great!" said the officer, as he looked upon the purse with a profound reverence, astonishing the humble wanderer by the respect he showed to the jewelled bag.
"And what place is this?" he asked of the officer, as hie looked curiously about him.
"By the beard of the Prophet, young man, do you not know?" asked the official.
"I do not."
"Not know whose purse you hold, and in whose grounds you stand!" reiterated the soldier.
"Not I."
"Allah akbar! it is the palace of the defender of the faith, Sultan Mahomet!"
"The Sultan!" exclaimed the lone wanderer, struck dumb with amazement.
"The Brother of the Sun," repeated the official, with a profound salaam as he repeated the name, while at the same time he noted the astonishment of the stranger.
"The Sultan," repeated the new comer, musing to himself, "rides he forth alone?"
"At times, yes, when it suits him. No harm can come to him—he is sacred, and need not fear."
"Perhaps not," answered the other, as he recalled the scene on the borders of the forest.
At the singular piece of intelligence which he had received, the stranger seemed to hesitate. He surely would not have come hither had he known to whom he was about to apply for assistance. Could it be the Sultan that he so opportunely aided? If so, he surely need not fear to meet him again; perhaps he might even venture still to tell him honestly his story, and ask at least for advice in the pursuit of the object which had brought him to Constantinople. In this half undecided mood he stood musing for some minutes, and then with a struggle for resolution, bade the officer lead him to his master.
Let us look in upon the royal presence for a moment. It is a gorgeous saloon, where the monarch lounges upon satin cushions, with the rich amber mouthpiece of his pipe between his lips, and the perfumed tobacco gently wreathing in blue smoke above his head. Mahomet was at this moment seated on a pedestal of cushions, so rich and soft that he seemed almost, lost in their luxuriance. Reclining by his side was a creature so lovely in her maidenly beauty, that pencil, not pen, should describe her. Ever and anon the monarch cast glances of such tenderness towards her that an unprejudiced observer would have noticed at once the warmth of his feelings towards her, while the gentle slave, for it was Lalla, turned over a pile of rich English engravings, pausing now and then to hold one of more than usual interest before his eyes.
It was an interesting scene. The pictures had deeply interested the slave, and with graceful abandon she had forgotten everything but them; now smiling over some curious representation, or sighing over another no less truthful, and her fair, young face expressing the feelings that actuated her bosom with telltale accuracy all the while. Her dark hair was interwoven with pearls by the running hands of the Nubian slaves, and its long plaits reached nearly to her feet, while across her fair brow there hung a cluster of diamonds which might have ransomed an emperor—a gift from the Sultan himself.
The Sultan seemed, of late, scarcely contented to have her from his side for a single hour, and even received his officials and gave audience, with her in the presence oftentimes, first motioning her, on such occasions, to cover her face, after the style of the Turkish women; but even this precaution was rarely taken, for Lalla was not used to it, and the Sultan pressed nothing upon her that he found to be in any way disagreeable to her feelings. So when the officer announced a stranger who had shown a purse which bore the Sultan's arms as his talisman, he was bidden to admit him at once.
The slave turned her back by chance as the stranger entered, and hearing not his steps she still bent absorbedly over the roll of engravings while the new comer with profound respect told the Sultan that until a moment since he had not known that it was his good fortune to have served his highness, and that perhaps had he realized this he would not then be before him.—But the monarch generously re-assured him by his kindness, and repeated his offer of any service in his power.
"I feel that I am already a heavy pensioner on your bounty, excellency," he replied.
"Not so; your bravery and prompt assistance stood us in aid at an important moment.—Speak then, and if there be aught in which we can further your wishes or good, it will afford us pleasure."
"It is of a matter, which would hardly interest your excellency that I would speak."
"We are the best judge of that matter."
"Shall I tell my story then, excellency?"
"Ay, speak on," said the monarch, resuming his pipe, and pouring forth a lazy cloud of smoke from his mouth.
"Excellency," he commenced, "I am it very humble mountaineer of the Caucasus, but until these few months past have been as happy as heart could wish. True, we have often been called upon to confront the Cossack, but that is a duty and a pleasure, and the tide of battle once over, we have returned with renewed joy to our cottage homes. Our hearths are rude and homely, but our wants are few, and our hearts are warm among our native hills.
"Suddenly, a hawk swooped down upon our mountain side, and bore away the sweetest and most innocent dove that nestled there, making desolate many hearts, and causing an aged mother and father to weep tears of bitter anguish. I loved that being, excellency, so well that my whole soul was hers, and she too in turn loved me. Broken hearted and most miserable I have wandered hither to seek her, for hither I found that she had been brought, and perhaps even now is the unhappy slave of some heartless one, and is pining for the home she has been torn from. If you would bless me, excellency, ay, bless yourself by a noble deed, then aid me to find her in this great capital."
The monarch listened with unfeigned interest, he, had a strong dash of romance in his disposition, besides which he could feel for the disconsolate lover now, since his own heart bad been so awakened to itself.
"Your story interests me," said the Sultan, still regarding him intently.
"It is very simple, excellency, but alas! it is also very true," was the reply.
"What name do you bear?"
"Aphiz Adegah, excellency!"
"And what was her name of whom you have spoken?"
"Her name was Komel."
At the same moment that he answered thus, Lalla turned by chance from her engravings, towards them, when her eyes resting upon those of Aphiz, she rose, staggered a few steps towards him, and uttered a scream so shrill and piercing that even the imperturbable Turk sprang to his feet in amazement, while Aphiz cried:
"It is she, it is my lost Komel!"