than his entreaties. Gently disengaging herself from his hands, she said,

"O my lord, tempt me not. Let not my lord kneel to his servant; threaten me, torture me, but let not my lord talk of love. Do I not know the fate of a favourite, the plaything of a day; thrown by to pine in neglect and solitude? And shall I not expect, and deserve, worse than these,-I, a despised renegade, a traitoress to my faith, surrounded by jealous enemies,-and forsaken by my God? No!" said she firmly, and looking up to heaven, " rather let me die at once, than die a thousand deaths by dragging out a degraded life of shame and remorse, to end in eternal ruin."

And now the storm burst; his love spurned and his power braved, it is not easy to describe the tumult of passion, the more fierce from being seldom roused, that raged in the Sultan's breast, on hearing this. address. Love, revenge, fury, seized on him by turns, his emotions were too intense for utterance, but shown by the terrific working of his countenance; he bit his parched lip till the blood flowed, his eyes flashed fire, from under his dark stormy brow, and his frame trembled as if about to be overcome by a fit of insanity. While this hurricane lasted, the life of Azora, who stood terror-struck, hung by a frail thread. By a strong effort he gradually recovered his self-possession, and when he spoke it was with frightful calmness; his face was deadly pale as he turned to

depart, "This, then, is your decision; you are prepared for the consequences?"

In her resolve not to compromise her principles, Azora had forgotten the necessity of obtaining delay; but having asserted these, she had now to risk the rectification of this omission.

"O my lord! be not hasty," she said, "let me have time to consider; perhaps voice faltered; "but

but her

if I must die

a few

days or weeks will be a short preparation for eternity!"

The Sultan stopped, and fixed his eyes on her changing countenance, in which he thought he saw signs of her wavering, and his love prompted him to delay while any hope remained. He replied in his former calm tone, "Azora, I have granted your request; two weeks shall you have for reflection. If at the end of that time you still spurn my love, by the tomb of the Prophet! no power on earth shall save you."

He was gone. Azora remained gazing at the closed door; it was as a dream, the time had been so short which had transported her from her quiet home to be the inmate of a palace with her life in danger. Tears came to her relief, and she sought to realise her position; she was not left long, however, to indulge her grief, for soon after the Sultan's departure, she was surrounded by the ladies of the hareem, who led her away to their own rooms; and during the time.

that her fate was undecided, she was treated with the greatest kindness, attired in costly dresses, adorned with valuable jewels; and they endeavoured to amuse her with music and tale-tellers, leaving nothing untried to turn her from her purpose, and reduce her to their own state of captivity.

86

CHAPTER IX.

THE FALCON CAGED.

T was about eight days after the arrest of the Jewess that Hassan mounted his horse and rode out of the town by the south gate. He rode onwards, engrossed by his own bitter reflections, almost unconscious that the moon had risen and that he was now far from the city. At the time that he found his plans frustrated by Azora's appeal he was overcome by rage and disappointment; as these feelings subsided, his conscience upbraided him for his useless perjury, by which he had brought Azora into imminent peril without in the slightest degree promoting his own guilty plans; he was merely a jackal to a lion.

Having bitterly repented of his crime, his mind was now constantly haunted with the dread of the consequent death to Azora, with which he himself had threatened her. One image pictured on his mind seemed to have effaced and taken the place of all others. A beautiful figure, on a pyre, with the flames leaping around her, looked on him with a look of reproachful agony! Sleeping or waking it was the same, wherever he looked those sad eyes met his;

there was no escape; he was becoming a monomaniac. His life was lonely, the only other inmate of his home being a little orphan sister of five years old, to whom he was much attached, but who was hardly old enough as a companion to divert his mind; and at night he was quite alone.

He now dismounted and sat down on a bank, under the trees. The evening breeze brought to his ear the modulated murmurs of a neighbouring rivulet; they sounded to him as the moan of suffering. The moon poured her beams through the foliage of olive that overshadowed him, painting the ground with a tracery of waving leafage, that seemed to him as flames. The image faded for a time, as the silence of the night soothed his harassed mind, and he felt himself more immediately in the presence of God amid the calm scenes of nature. The lessons of childhood, and the principles of youth, which had not been wholly extinguished, rose up to accuse him; and overcome by shame and remorse, he leaned his head on his clasped hands and wept bitterly, until his heart was seared and his eyes were dry. Alas! man's tears harrow, but are no relief.

"Salemo Alikoom," said a clear voice near him ; and remembering the lateness of the hour he started to his feet.

"And on you peace," he returned to the stranger, who now stood by his side. By the moonlight he could see that he was tall, with an aquiline nose, and short black beard, and dressed in the slovenly hayk