The Sultan was as capable of revenge as he was of love or gratitude, and this, Aphiz was destined to learn to his sorrow; for no sooner did the monarch comprehend the scene we have just described, after having heard the story of Aphiz related, than he immediately summoned the guard, and the young Circassian found himself borne away to a place of confinement within the seraglio gardens, where he was left alone to ponder upon his singular situation. It was not an easy task for him to divest his mind of the thought that all was a dream, so singular were the threads of the past woven together since the happy hours when Komel and himself bade good night at her father's cottage door.
As to the fair and beautiful slave herself, she was conducted back to the harem, at the same time that Aphiz was borne away to prison, but a new world had opened to her. Her voice and hearing, lost by the fearful shock she had realized by that sight of bloodshed on the night when they stole her away from her parents, had, strangely enough, been again restored by a shock scarcely less potent in its effect upon her. That startling scream which she uttered on beholding Aphiz had loosened the portals of her ears, and the violent effort made in order to utter that exclamation had again loosened the power of utterance. In spite of the attending circumstances, she could not but rejoice at the return of those faculties that she had now been taught the value of.
The delight of the Sultan at Komel's recovery of her speech and hearing, was only equalled by his uneasiness at the extraordinary position of affairs between himself and the man who had so gallantly saved his life on the Belgrade plains. Loving his slave so tenderly, what could he do under the circumstances? He now found the music of her voice as delicious as the almost angelic beauty of her form and features, and so charmed was he with the improvement that Komel evinced, and so did he love to listen to her voice, that he could even bear to hear her plead for Aphiz, and beseech that he might be brought to her. Much as this would have been against his own feelings and wishes, still to have her talk to him he listened patiently, or seemed to do so, even while she besought him thus.
There was another being whose joy at Komel's recovery of her speech seemed, if possible, more extravagant even than the Sultan's, and far more remarkable in manifestation. When the idiot boy first heard her voice, he started, and crouching like an animal, crept away to a spot whence he could observe her without himself being seen. By degrees he drew nearer, and finally received her kind tokens without any evidences of fear. And by degrees, as she spoke to him and tutored her words to his simple capacity, he seemed to be filled with the very ecstasy of joy, and ran and leaped like a hound newly loosed from confinement. Then he would return, and taking her hand, place it upon his forehead and temples, and then curling his body into a ball, lie motionless by her side.
"You love this young Circassian, and would leave me and your present home for him?" asked the Sultan, as Komel entered the reception saloon in answer to a summons he had sent to her.
"I do love him, excellency," replied the slave, honestly; "we were children together, and I cannot remember the time when I loved him not, for we were always as brother and sister."
"There are not many of thy nation, Komel, who would choose an humble mountaineer to a Sultan," said the monarch, with a bitter intonation of voice.
"Alas! excellency," she replied, "too many of my untutored countrywomen, being brought up from their infancy to consider it as their infallible lot, make a barter of their hearts for gold. Such know no true promptings of love."
"You are happy and contented here, you want for nothing, you are the mistress of this broad palace. Bid me send thy countryman away loaded with gold, and we will live always together."
"Excellency, I am not happy here, and though I participate in all the splendor you so liberally furnish for me, my heart, alas! is ever straying back to my humble home."
"This feeling of discontent will soon die away, Komel, and you will be happy again," said the Sultan, toying with her delicate hands which had been tipped at the finger ends by the Nubian slaves with the henna dye.
"Never, excellency, my early home and my heart will always be together," she replied, with a sigh.
"Nevertheless, Komel," continued the Sultan in a decided tone of voice, "you are my slave, and I love you. This being the case, think you I shall be very ready to part with you?"
"Ah! excellency, you are too generous, too kind-hearted, to detain me here against my wishes. I know this by the gentle and considerate care I have already received at your hands."
"You mistake, you mistake," repeated the Sultan, earnestly; "that was because I loved you so well, Komel. I saw in you, not only the transparent beauty with which Heaven has endowed your race, but a soul and intelligence that won my heart. Your infirmity, now so suddenly removed, demanded for you every consideration, but now aroused by the opposition that circumstances seem to have woven around me, other feelings are fast becoming rooted in my breast. Shall such as I am be thwarted in my wish by an humble mountaineer of the Caucasus?"
As the monarch spoke thus he laid aside the mouth-piece of his pipe, and leaning upon his elbow amid the yielding cushions, covered his face with his hand and seemed lost in silent meditation.
The beautiful slave regarded him intently while he remained in this position. His uniform kindness to her for so long a period had led her to regard him with no slight attachment, but she knew that Aphiz was at that very moment under close confinement within the palace walls for his faithfulness in following and seeking her, and as she was wholly his before, this but endeared him more earnestly to her. All the splendor that Sultan Mahomet could offer her, the rank and wealth, were all counted as naught in comparison with the tender affection which had grown up with her from childhood.
She awaited in silence the monarch's mood, but resolved to appeal to his mercy, and beg him to release both Aphiz and herself, that they might return together once more to their distant home.
But alas! how utterly useless were all her efforts to this end. They were received by the Sultan in that cold, irrascible spirit that seems to form so large a share of the Turkish character. Her words seemed only to arouse and fret him now, and she could see in his looks of fixed determination and resolve that in the end he would stop at no means to gratify his own wishes, and that perhaps, Aphiz's life alone would satisfy his bitter spirit. It was a fearful thought that he should be sacrificed for her sake, and she trembled as she looked into the dark depths of his stern, cold eye, which had never beamed on her thus before.
She crept nearer to his side, and raising his hand within her own, besought him to look kindly upon her again, to smile on her as he used to do. It was a gentle, confiding and entreating appeal, and for a moment the stern features of the monarch did relent, but it was for an instant only his thoughts troubled him, and he was ill at ease.
In the meantime Aphiz Adegah found himself confined in a close prison; the entire current of his feelings were changed by the discovery he had made. Not having been able to exchange one word with Komel, of course he could not possibly know aught of her real situation further than appearances indicated by her presence there, and he could not but tremble at the fear that naturally suggested itself to his mind as to the relationship which she bore to the Sultan—In this painful state of doubt, he counted the weary hours in his lonely cell, and calmly awaited his impending fate, let it be what it might.
He knew the summary mode in which Turkish justice was administered; he was not unfamiliar with the dark stories that were told of sunken bodies about the outer bastion of the palace where its walls were laved by the Bosphorus. He knew very well that an unfaithful wife or rival lover was often sacrificed to the pride or revenge of any titled or rich Turk who happened to possess the power to enable him to carry out his purpose. Knowing all this he prepared his mind for whatever might come, and had he been summoned to follow a guard detailed to sink him in the sea, he would not have been surprised. The idiot boy, half-witted as he was, seemed at once by some natural instinct to divine the relationship that existed between Komel and the prisoner, and suggested to her a plan of communication with him by means of flowers. She saw the boy gather up a handful of loose buds and blossoms from her lap several times, and observed him carry them away. Curiosity led her to see what he did with then, and she followed him as far as she might do consistently with the rules of the harem, and from thence observed him scale a tree that overhung a dark sombre-looking building, and toss the flowers through a small window, into what she knew at once must be Aphiz's cell.
In childhood, Aphiz and herself had often interpreted to each other the language of flowers, and now hastening back to the luxuriant conservatory of plants, she culled such as she desired, and arranging them with nervous fingers, told in their fragrant folds how tenderly she still loved him, and that she was still true to their plighted faith.
Entrusting this to the boy she indicated what he was to do with it, while the poor half-witted being seemed in an ecstacy of delight at his commission, and soon deposited the precious token inside the window of Aphiz's prison.
It needed no conjuror to tell Aphiz whom that floral letter came from. The shower of buds and blossoms that had been thrown to him by the boy had puzzled him, coming without any apparent design, regularity, or purpose; but this, as he read its hidden mystery, was all clear enough to him, he knew the hand that had to gathered and bound them together. She was true and loved him still.
Komel, in her earnest love, despite the rebuff she had already received, determined once more to appeal to the Sultan for the release of his prisoner. But the monarch had grown moody and thoughtful, as we have seen, when he realized that his slave loved another; and every word she now uttered in his behalf was bitterness to his very soul. She only found that he was the more firmly set in his design as to retraining her in the harem, if not to take the life of the young mountaineer.
The Sultan brooded over this state of affairs with a settled frown upon his brow. Had it not been that Aphiz had saved his life by his brave assistance at a critical moment, he would not have hesitated one instant as to what he should do, for had it been otherwise he would have ordered him to be destroyed as quickly as he would have ordered the execution of any criminal.—But hardened and calloused as he was by power, and self-willed as he was from never being thwarted in his wishes, yet he found it difficult to give the order that should sacrifice the life of one who had so gallantly saved him from peril.
At last the monarch seemed to have resolved upon some plan, whereby he hoped to relieve himself from the dilemma that so seriously annoyed him. He was most expert at disguises; indeed, it was often his custom to walk the streets of his capital incog, or to ride out unattended, in a plain citizen's dress, as we have seen, that he might the better observe for himself those things concerning which he required accurate information. It was then nothing new for him to don the dress of an officer of the household guard; and in this costume he visited Aphiz in his cell, representing himself to be the agent of the Sultan.
"I come as an agent of the Sultan," he said, as the turnkey introduced him to the cell.
"The Sultan is very gracious to remember' me; what is his will?" asked the prisoner.
"He has a proposition to offer you, to which, if you accede, you are at once free to go from here."
"And what are these terms?" asked Aphiz, with perfect coolness.
"That you instantly leave Constantinople, never again to return to it."
"Alone?"
"Except that he will fill a purse with gold for thee to help thee on thy homeward way."
"I shall never leave the city alone," replied the prisoner, with firmness.
"Is that your answer?"
"As well thus perhaps as any way. I shall never leave this city without Komel."
"But if you remain it may cost you your life," continued the stranger.
"I do not fear death," replied the Circassian, with the utmost coolness.
"A painful and degrading death," suggested the agent, earnestly.
"I care not. I have faced death in too many forms to fear him in any."
"Stubborn man!" continued the visiter, irritated in the extreme at the cool decision and dauntless bravery of the prisoner, adding, "you tempt your own fate by refusing this generous offer."
"No fate can be worse than to be separated from her I love. If that is to be done, then welcome death; for life without her would cease to be desirable."
"Do not be hasty in your decision."
"I am all calmness," was the reply.
"And shall I bear your refusal to leave the city, to the Sultan? Weigh the matter well; you can return to your native land with a purse heavy with gold, but if you remain you die."
"You have then my plain refusal of the terms. Tell the Sultan for me,"—Aphiz in his acuteness easily penetrated the monarch's disguise,—"tell him I thank him heartily for the generous means that he afforded me when I was poor and needy, and whereby I have been supported in his capital so long. Tell him too that I forgive him for this causeless imprisonment, and that if it be his will that I should die, because I love one who has loved me from childhood, I forgive him that also."
"You will not reconsider this answer."
"I am firm, and no casualty can alter my feelings, no threats can alarm me."
The visiter could not suppress his impatience at these remarks, but telling Aphiz that if he repeated his answer to the Sultan he feared that it would seal his fate forever, he left him once more alone.
Aphiz, as we have said, knew very well who had visited him in his cell, and now that he was gone he composed himself as best he could, placing Komel's bouquet in his bosom and trying to sleep, for it was now night. But he felt satisfied in his own mind that his worst expectations would be realized ere long, for he had marked well the expression of the Sultan's face, and he fell asleep to dream that he had bidden Komel and life itself adieu.
And while he, whom she loved so well, lay upon the damp floor of the cell to sleep, Komel lounged on a couch of downy softness, and was lulled to sleep by the playing of sweet fountains, and the gentle notes of the lute played by a slave, close by her couch, that her dreams might be sweet and her senses beguiled to rest by sweet harmony. But the lovely girl forgot him not, and her dreams were of him as her waking thoughts were ever full of him.
What is there, this side of heaven, brighter than the enduring constancy of woman?
The sun was almost set, and the soft twilight was creeping over the incomparable scenery that renders the coast of Marmora so beautiful; the gilded spires of the oriental capital were not more brilliant than the dimpled surface of the sea where it opened and spread away from the mouth of the Bosphorus. The blue waters had robbed the evening sky of its blushing tints, and seemed to revel in the richness of its coloring.—It was at this calm and quiet hour that a caique, propelled by a dozen oarsmen, shot out from the shore of the Seraglio Point, and swept round at once with its prow turned towards the open sea. In the stern at two dark, uncouth looking Turks, between whom was a young man who seemed to be under restraint, and in whom the reader would have recognized Aphiz, the Sultan's prisoner.
It was plain that the caique was bound on some errand of more than ordinary interest, and many eyes from the shore were regarding it curiously, as did also the various boat crews that met it on the water.
Still it held on its way steadily, propelled by the long, regular stroke of the oarsmen over the half mile of blue water that separates Europe and Asia at this point, sweeping as it went by, lovely villages, mosques, minarets, and the dark cemeteries that line the shores, until, a certain point having been gained, the oarsmen at a signal from those in the stern, rested from their labors, while the boat still glided on from the impetus it had received. In a moment more, Aphiz was completely covered with a large, stout canvas bag or sack, which was secured about him and tied up. At one extremity was attached a heavy shot, and when these preparations were completed, he was cast into the sea, sinking as quickly from sight as a stone might have done. A few bubbles rose to the surface where the sack had gone down, and all was over. The bows of the caique were instantly turned towards the city, and the men gave way as carelessly as though nothing uncommon had transpired.
Aphiz had thus been made to suffer the penalty usually inflicted upon certain crimes, and especially to the wives of such of the Turks as suspected them of inconstancy, a punishment that is even to this day common in Constantinople. The Sultan had reasoned that if Komel knew Aphiz Adegah to be dead, she would after awhile recover from the shock, and gradually forgetting him, receive his own regard instead of that of the young mountaineer, as he would have her do voluntarily; for he felt, as much as he coveted her favor, that he could never claim her for a wife unless it was with her own consent and free will. If he had not love her, he would have felt differently, and would have commanded that favor which now would lose its charms unless 'twas wooed and won.
But we shall see how mistaken the monarch was in his selfish calculations.
Reasoning upon the grounds that we have named, the Sultan had ordered Aphiz to be drowned in the Bosphorus, as we have seen, and the deed was performed by the regular executioners of government. The Sultan was supreme, and his orders were obeyed without question; this being the case, Aphiz's fate caused no remark even among the gossips.
The few days that had transpired since Komel had regained her speech and hearing, had of course taught her more in relation to her actual situation and the character of those about her than she had been able to gather by silent observation during her entire previous confinement in the harem of the palace.
She was aware that the Sultan was impetuous and self-willed, but she could hardly bring her mind to believe that he would actually put in practice such a piece of villany as should cost Aphiz his life. Knowing as much as she did of his imperious and stern habits, she did not believe him capable of such cold-blooded baseness. But no sooner had the officers, sent to execute his sentence against the innocent mountaineer, returned and announced the task as performed, than Komel was summoned to the presence of the the Sultan.
"I have sent for you, Komel," said the monarch, while he regarded her intently as he spoke, "to tell you that Aphiz is dead."
"Dead, excellency; do you say dead?"
"Yes."
"You do but jest with me, excellency," she said, trying in her tremor to smile.
"I rarely jest with any one and surely should not have sent for you were I in that mood. He has gone to make food for the fishes at the bottom of the Bosphorus."
"Has his life been taken by your orders, excellency?" she asked, with a pallid cheek and blanched lips.
"You have said," answered the Sultan.
"Ah! excellency, I am but a weak girl and can ill abide a jest. Aphiz can have done nothing to receive your displeasure, and surely you would not take his life without reason."
"I had reason sufficient for me."
"What was it, excellency?"
"The fellow loved you, Komel."
"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!"
The monarch bit his lip at the sarcasm of the remark, and as it, was expressed with no lack of bitterness, it could not but cut him keenly. Still preserving that calm self-possession which a full consciousness of his power imparted, he smiled instead of frowning upon her, and said:
"You are heated now; to-morrow, or perhaps the next day, you may come to me, and I trust that you will then be in a better humor than at present."
Komel bowed coldly at the intimation, while her expression told how bitterly she felt towards him.
A dark frown came over the Sultan's face at the same moment, and an accurate reader of physiognomy would have detected the fear expressed there that his violent purpose, as executed upon Aphiz, had failed totally of success.
Turning coldly away from him, the slave sought her own apartment in the gorgeous palace, to mourn in silence and alone over the fearful and bitter news she had just heard concerning one who was to her all in all, and who had taken with him her heart to the spirit land. The world, and all future time, looked to her like a blank, as though overspread by one heavy cloud, that obliterated entirely and forever the sight of that sun which had so long warmed her heart with its genial rays. As we have already said, Komel lacked not for tenderness of feeling. Her heart was gentle and susceptible; but dashing now the tears from her eyes, she assumed a forced calmness, and strove to reason with herself as she said, quietly, "We shall meet again in heaven!" Humming some wild air of her native land, the slave then tried to lose herself in some trifling occupation, that she might partially forget her sorrows.
Her flowers were not forgotten, nor her pet pigeons unattended. She wandered amid the fragrant divisions of the harem, and threw herself down by its bubbling jets and fountains as she had done before, but not thoughtlessly. The spirit of Aphiz seemed to her to be ever by her side, and she would talk to him as though he was actually present, in soft and tender whispers, and sing the songs of their native valley with low and witching cadence; and thus she was partially happy, for the soul is where it loves, rather than where it lives. From childhood she had been taught to believe the Swedenborgian doctrine, of the presence of the spirits of those who have gone before us to the better land; and she deemed, as we have said, that Aphiz Adegah was ever by her side, listening to her, and sympathizing with all she did and said.
It is a happy faith, that the disembodied spirits of those whom we have loved and respected here are still, though invisible, watching over us with tender solicitude. Such a realization must be chastening in its influence, for who would do an unworthy deed, believing his every act visible to those eyes that he had delighted to please on earth? And yet, could we but realize it, there is always one eye, the Infinite and Supreme One, ever upon us, and should we not be equally sensitive in our doings beneath his ever present being?
It was the character of Komel's belief as to the spirits of the departed, that rendered her so calm and resigned, though the Sultan, in his blindness, attributed it to the forgetfulness engendered by time, and smiled to himself to think how quickly the fickle girl had forgotten one whose ardent devotion to her cost him his life. "She scarcely deserved this fidelity on his part," said the monarch, with a dark frown, as the memory of the gallant service the young Circassian had done him when he was beset by the Bedouins, flashed across his mind, rendering even his hardened spirit, for a moment, uneasy. "The difficulty, after all," he said to him himself, "is not so much to die for one we love, as to find one worthy of dying for." Shaking an extra dose of the powdered drug into the bowl of his pipe, the blue smoke curled away in tiny clouds above his head, while its narcotic effect soon lulled both mental and physical faculties into a state of dreamy insensibility.
What ardent spirits are to our countrymen, opium is in the East, except, perhaps that the powerful drug is more exalting in its stimulating influences, and less vile in its immediate effects; but no less severe is it to hurry those who indulge in such dissipation, with a broken constitution and ruined mental faculties to the grave.
Komel seemed gradually to settle down to a quiet and even half satisfied consciousness of her situation. True, she could not but often sigh for her home and parents, but with her more settled condition fresh spirits had come to her features, and renewed energies were depicted in every movement of her graceful and lovely form. Though constantly surrounded by a troop of slaves, chosen solely for their personal beauty and the charms that made them excel their sex generally, still she outshone them all, and that, too, without the simplest effort to do so; and yet for all this, so sweet was her native disposition, and so winning and gentle her spirit at all times, that they loved her still as at first, without one thought of envy or jealousy.
So far as her companions were concerned, therefore, she could hardly have been more happily situated than she was, and for their kindness she strove to manifest the kind, affectionate promptings that actuated her heart. She even joined them in many of their games and sports, though most of her time was passed alone, save that the idiot boy almost ever sought her out, and came and slept at her side, or seemed to do so, only too much delighted when she showed him any little, careful attention, and watching her when she did not observe him, with an intensity that seemed strange in one who was not supposed to be possessed of any actual reasoning powers, or indeed of much brains at all.
Having no mental occupation, the poor boy, who was, as far as his physical developments went, a specimen of rare youthful beauty and grace of form, employed a large portion of his time in such exercises and feats of agility as a sort of animal instinct might lead him to attempt, and thus Komel was often startled by suddenly beholding him dangling by his feet from some lofty cypress, swinging to and fro like a monkey; or to observe him turning a series of summersets, in a broad circle, with such incredible swiftness as to cause all distinctness of his form to be lost, producing a most singular and magical appearance. Then, perhaps, after forming a circle thus on the green sod he would suddenly plunge into its midst, coil himself up like a snail, or put his head between his feet, and thus go to sleep, or lie there as still as though he had been a stone, for hours at a time.
Thus, days and weeks passed on in the same routine of fairy-like scenes, and the Sultan's slaves counted not the time that brought to them but a never varying dull monotony of indolent luxuriance. They had no intellectual pursuits or tastes, and therefore were but sorry companions for one whose native intelligence was so prominent a trait in her character. Thus it was, therefore, having no one with whom she could truly and honestly sympathize, that Komel preferred to whisper her thoughts to the birds and flowers, and to fancy that Aphiz's spirit was near by, smiling upon her the while. What a strange and dreamy life the Circassian was passing in the Sultan's harem!
Komel, it is true, mourned for her liberty, and what caged bird is there that does not!
It was morning in the East, and all things partook of the dewy freshness of early days.—The busy din of the city was momentarily increasing, and as the hours advanced, the broad sunlight gilded all things far and near. It was at this bright and exhilarating hour that two persons sat together on the silky grass that caps the summit of Bulgarlu. They had wandered hither, seemingly, to view the splendid scenery together, and were regarding it with earnest eyes.
How beautiful looked the Turkish capital below them! From Seraglio Point, seven miles down the coast of Roumelia, the eye followed a continued wall, and from the same point twenty miles up the Bosphorus on either shore, stretched one crowded and unbroken city, with its star-shaped bay in the midst, floating a thousand maritime crafts, prominent among which were the Turkish men-of-war flaunting their blood-red flags in the breeze. Far away over the Sea of Mannora their eyes rested on a snow-white cloud at the edge of the horizon. It was Mount Olympus, the fabulous residence of the gods. In this far-off scene, too, lay Bithynia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, and the entire scene of the apostle Paul's travels in Asia Minor. Then their eyes wandered back once more and rested now on the old Fortress of the Seven Towers, where fell the emperor Constantine, and where Othman the second was strangled.
Between the Seven Towers and the Golden Horn, were the seven hills of ancient Stamboul, the towering arches of the aqueduct of Valens crossing from one to another, and the swelling domes and gold-tipped minarets of a hundred imperial mosques crowning their summits. And there too was Seraglio Point, a spot of enchanting loveliness, forming a tiny cape as it projects towards the opposite continent and separates the bay from the Sea of Marmora; its palaces buried in soft foliage, out of which gleam gilded cupolas and gay balconies and a myriad of brilliant and glittering domes. And then their eyes ran down the silvery link between the two seas, where lay fifty valleys and thirty rivers, while an imperial palace rests on each of the loveliest spots, the entire length, from the Black Sea to Marmora.
Such was the beautiful and classic scenery that lay outspread before the two young persons who had seated themselves on the summit of Bulgarlu, and if its charms had power over the casual observer, how much more beautiful did it appear to these two who saw it through each other's eyes. A closer observation would have shown that one of the couple was a female, for some purpose seeking to disguise her sex; he by her side was evidently her lover, to meet whom, she had hazarded this exposure beyond the city walls at so early an hour.
"Ah, dearest Zillah'," said he who sat by the maiden's side, "I would that we lived beyond the sea from whence, come those ships that bear the stars and stripes, for I am told that in America, religious belief is no bar to the union of heart, as it is in the Sultan's domains."
"Nor should it be so here, Capt. Selim," she answered, "did our noble Sultan understand the best good of his people. May the Prophet open his eyes."
"Though I love thee far better than all else on the earth, Zillah, still I cannot abjure my Christian faith, and, like a hypocrite, pretend to be a true follower of Mahomet. At best, we can be but a short time here on earth, and if I was unfaithful in my holy creed, how could I hope at last to meet thee, dearest, in paradise?"
"I do love thee but the more dearly," she replied, "for thy constancy to the Christian faith, and though my father has reared me in the Mussulman belief, still I am no bigot, as thou knowest."
Zillah was a child in years—scarcely sixteen summers had developed their power in her slight but beautiful form, and yet it was rounded so nearly to perfection, so slightly and gracefully full, as to captivate the most fastidious eye. Like every child of these Turkish harems, she was beautiful, with feature of faultless regularity, and eyes that were almost too large and brilliant.
He who was her companion, and whom she had called Capt. Selim, was the same young officer whom the reader met in an early chapter at the slave bazaar, and who bid to the extent of his means for Komel, who was at last borne away by the Sultan's agent. He was well formed and handsome, his undress uniform showing him to be attached to the naval service of the Sultan. He might be four or five years her senior, but though he appeared thus young, he seemed to have many years of experience, with an unflinching steadiness of purpose denoted in his countenance, showing him fitted for stern emergencies calling for promptness and daring in the hour of danger. The story of their love was easily told. While young Selim was yet a lieutenant in the Sultan's navy, a caique containing Zillah and the rich of Bey, her father, had met with an accident in the Bosphorus while close by a boat which he commanded, and by which accident Zillah was thrown into the water, and but for the officer's prompt delivery would doubtless have been drowned. But with a stout purpose, and being a daring swimmer, he bore her safely to the shore.
With the suddenness of oriental passion they loved at once, but their after intercourse was necessarily kept a secret, since they knew full well that the Bey would at once punish them both if he should discover them, for how could a Musselman tolerate a Christian, and to this sect the young officer was known to belong. They had met often thus, and by the ingenious device adopted in Zillah's dress had avoided detection. But these stolen meetings, so sweet, were fearfully dangerous to the young officer, the punishment of his offence, if discovered, being death.
Finally, on one of these stolen excursions, Zillah was detained so long as to cause notice and surprise in the harem, and when she returned she was reprimanded by the Bey, who gave orders, that for the future she should not be permitted to leave the garden walks of the palace, and the poor girl pined like a caged wild bird. The latticed balcony of Zillah's apartment, like many of the Turkish houses, overhung the Bosphorus, so that a boat might lie beneath it within a distance to afford easy means of communication, and thus Selim still was able at times, though with the utmost caution, to hold converse with her he loved so well.
But Zillah's susceptible and gentle disposition could not sustain her present treatment. She loved the young officer so earnestly and truly that it was misery to be deprived of his society as was now the case, for even their partial intercourse had been suspended since the Bey had discovered his daughter talking to some one, and he had forbidden her to ever enter the apartment again that overhung the water.
Thus confined and crossed in her feelings, Zillah grew sick, and paler and paler each day, until the old Bey, now thoroughly aroused, was extremely anxious lest she should be taken to the Prophet's house. The best sages and doctors to be found were summoned, and constantly attended the drooping flower, but alas! to no effect. Their art was not cunning enough to discover the true cause of her malady, and they could only shake their heads, and strike their beards ominously to the inquiries of the anxious old Bey, her father.
The cold-hearted Bey never dreamed of the real cause of her illness. True, he had suspected her of being too unguarded in her habits, and had laid restrictions upon her liberty, but as to disappointment in love being the cause of her malady, indeed it did not seem to his heartless disposition that love could produce such a result. She was perhaps the only being in the world who had ever caused him to realize that he had a heart. After thinking long and much upon the illness of his child, he resolved to seek her confidence, and turning his steps toward the harem, he found his drooping and fading flower reclining upon a velvet couch. Seating himself by her side, he parted the hair from her fair, young brow, and told his child how dearly he loved her, and if aught weighed upon her mind he besought her to open her lips and speak to him. Zillah loved her father, though she was not blind to his many faults.
"Dear father, what shall I say to thee?"
"Speak thy whole heart, my child."
"Nay, but it would only displease thee, my father, for me to do so."
"Tell me, Zillah, if thou knowest what it is that sickens thee, and robs thy cheek of its bloom?"
"Father," she answered, with a sigh, "my heart is breaking with unhappy love."
"Love!"
"Ay, I love Selim, he who saved me from drowning in the Bosphorus."
"The Sultan's officer?"
"Yes, father, Capt. Selim."
"Why, child, that young rascal is a notorious dog of a Christian. Do you know it?"
"I know he believes not in the faith of our fathers," she answered, modestly.
The old Turk bit his lips with vexation, but dared not vent the passion he felt in the delicate ear of his sick child. Indeed he had only to look into her pale face to turn the whole current of his anger into pity at the danger he read there.
The old Bey knew the spirit that Zillah had inherited both from himself and from her mother, and that she was fixed in her purpose. She frankly told him that she could never be happy unless Selim was her husband. The father was most sadly annoyed. He referred to the best physicians in the city to know if a malady such as his daughter suffered under, could prove fatal, and they assured him that this had frequently been the case. One, however, to whom he applied, informed the Bey that he knew of a Jewish leech who was famed for curing all maladies arising from depression, physical or mental, and if he desired it, he would send the Jew to his house on the subsequent day, when he would say if he could do her any good as it regarded her illness.
Much as the Mussulman despised the race, still, in the hope of benefiting his child by the man's medical skill, he desired the Armenian physician to send the Jew, as he proposed, on the following day, and paying the heavy fee that these leeches know so well how to charge the rich old Turks, the Bey departed once more to his palace.
At the hour appointed, the Armenian physician despatched the Jewish doctor to the Bey's gates, where he was admitted, and received with as much respect as the Turk could bring his mind to show towards unbelievers, and the business being properly premised, the father told the Jew how his daughter was affected, and asked if he might hope for her recovery.
"With great care and cunning skill, perhaps so," said the Jew, from out his overgrown beard.
"If this can be accomplished through thy means, I make thee rich for life," said the Bey.
"We can but try," said the Jew, "and hope for the best. Lead me to thy daughter."
The Bey conducted the leech to his daughter's apartment, and bidding her tell freely all her pains and ills, left the Jew to study her case, while he retired once more to silent converse with himself.
"You are ill," said the Jew, addressing Zillah, while he seated himself and rested his head upon his staff.
"Yes, I am indeed."
"And yet methinks no physical harm is visible in thy person. The pain is in the heart?"
"You speak truly," said Zillah, with a sigh—"I am very unhappy."
"You love?"
"I do."
"And art loved again?"
"Truly, I believe so."
"Then, whencefore art thou unhappy; reciprocal love begets not unhappiness?"
"True, good leech; but he whom I love so well is a Christian, and I can hold no communication with him, much less even hope to be his wife."
"Do you love him so well that you would leave home, father, everything, for him?" asked the Jew.
"Alas! it would be hard to leave my father but still am I so wholly his, I would do even so."
"Then may you be happy yet," said he, who spoke to her, as he tossed back the hood of his gaberdine, and removed the false hair that he wore, presenting the features of young Selim, whom she loved!
"How is this possible?" she said, between her sobs and smiles of joy; "my father told me that the Armenian recommended you for your skill in the healing art."
"He is my friend, the man who taught me my religion, my everything, and the only confidant I have in all Constantinople. To him I told the grief of my heart at our separation; by chance your father called on him for counsel; he knew the Bey, and his mind suggested that I was the true physician whom you needed, and fabricating the story of my profession, he sent me hither."
The fair young girl gazed at him she loved, and wept with joy, and with her hands held tremblingly in his own, Selim told her of a plan he had formed for their escape from the city to some distant land where they might live together unmolested and happy in each other's society. He explained to her that he should tell her father that it was necessary for him to administer certain medicines to her beneath the rays of the moon, and that while she was strolling with him thus the water's edge, he would have a boat ready and at a favorable moment jumping into this, they would speed away.
The moments flew with fearful speed, and pressing her tenderly to his heart, the pretended Jew had only time to resume his disguise when the Bey entered. He saw in the face of his child a color and spirit that had not been there for months before, and delighted, he turned to the Jew to know if he had administered any of his cunning medicines, and being told that a small portion of the necessary article had been given, was overjoyed at the effect.
Being of a naturally superstitious race, the Turk heard the Jew's proposition as it regarded the administering of his next dose of medicine beneath the calm rays of the moon in the open air, with satisfaction; for had he not already worked a miracle upon his child? He was told that by administering the medicine once or twice at the proper moment beneath the midnight rays of the moon, he should doubtless be able to effect a perfect cure.
Satisfied fully of what he had seen and heard, he dismissed the pretended Jew with a heavy purse of gold, and bade him choose his own time, telling him also that his palace gates should ever be open to him.