Yes, there comes Mohammed Ali, marching at the head of his company, to the sound of the martial music. He holds his sword uplifted in his right hand, and salutes the governor as he approaches by lowering its point to the ground with a deferential glance. He recognizes his friend, and Osman joyously returns the greeting.

Mohammed seems to him entirely changed at this moment, his figure taller and more powerful. His countenance is manly and joyous, his eyes sparkle with a mysterious fire, a smile plays about his lips, and his whole bearing is firm and commanding.

It is not Osman alone who sees this change. Cousrouf Pacha has also observed it. His countenance darkens. He compresses his lips as if to repress a curse that is struggling for utterance. Yet he retains his air of indifference and grave countenance, though his cheeks grow a shade paler, and his brow somewhat darker.

The band plays a lively air. Mohammed conducts his soldiers before the eyes of the governor and his guest through a series of movements and evolutions which he has long since practiced in secret. As they now advance toward him, "Right about, halt!" resounds Mohammed's word of command; and his soldiers stand there like a wall.

"Well done," said Cousrouf Pacha, with a gracious inclination of the head. He then added in a loud voice, in order that Mohammed should hear him: "You see, governor, street boys can watch soldiers exercising to some purpose. Mohammed has not stared at them on the street in vain."

He turns and leaves the court-yard, repairs to his private apartments, and calls the two eunuchs who had held the fruitless watch at the gate the previous night.

"When the soldiers have left the court-yard, twelve of their number will be placed at your disposal. Let them load their muskets and unsheath their swords. Then go to Praousta, to the sheik's house, and demand the restoration of my slave. Demand it in my name. If her father refuses, search the house and every place connected with it.

Break open the doors if he refuses to unlock them. If you do not find her there, search the other houses of the village. I must have her! If you do not find her to-day, then find her to-morrow or the next day. I will allow you a week's time in which to get possession of this runaway slave. If you do not return her, your heads shall fall! Remember that! Stop, one thing more: observe and watch the new boulouk bashi. Select some of my servants to follow him day and night, and to observe every thing he does, yet without letting him become aware of it, for he is a shrewd lad and a daring one, too.

Now, you can go."

While the company is still standing drawn up in the court-yard, the tschorbadji beckons Mohammed Ali to his side, and enters the palace with him.

"Mohammed, it is evident that you will become a brave and efficient soldier. You have courage; now learn to control your anger, to govern yourself, and then you will know how to command others. See, this purse filled with gold-pieces is the captain's salary for three months, which I pay in advance, as the young boulouk bashi will have to incur some necessary expenses, and will therefore be glad to accept a payment in advance."

Mohammed thanked the governor, and received the first salary of his new dignity with perfect composure, though a sudden sparkling in his eyes indicated how much he rejoiced over it.

Osman, however, can read his friend's countenance well. As the governor turns away, Osman throws his arms around Mohammed's neck and whispers in his ear: "You stand there radiant like a hero, and all the bliss of the world and of love, too, is reflected in your countenance. O Mohammed, father says you should learn to control yourself, and I am satisfied you can. When my friend is harassed with sorrow and care his countenance bears no evidence of it, but happiness is not to be repressed and driven back to the heart in this way. It illumines the face of man like the sun. But I warn you, Mohammed, it is sometimes dangerous to let one's countenance shine so. It easily awakens suspicion in the breast of an enemy, and he meditates revenge. Beware! Beware!

Mohammed regards his friend as though he did not understand him.

"What do you mean, Osman?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, Mohammed, except that it is sometimes dangerous to allow one's happiness to be observed. Bear this in mind, my friend, and draw a veil over your radiant countenance."

CHAPTER IX

WHERE IS SHE?

In Praousta, all was again uproar and confusion. Eight eunuchs of the mighty pacha, Cousrouf, accompanied by a detachment of twelve soldiers, came down from Cavalla at noon. They went directly to the house of the sheik, and demanded to see him.

Djumeila, her eyes red with weeping, came to the door and told them her master was ill with grief and anxiety on account of the disappearance of his daughter.

The eunuchs pushed her aside, and penetrated, in spite of her cries and attempts to bar their passage, into the room where the sheik lay on his divan, with pallid face and staring gaze. His lamentations were heartrending. His quivering lips continually cried: "Where is my daughter, where is my child?"

They roughly forced him to his feet, and with savage threats demanded of the old man that he should deliver over to them their master's slave, his daughter Masa. Aroused from his torpor, he stares at them in amazement:

"Slave!" cried he. "And you call her Masa, and my daughter; and you say it is she? Who calls Masa, daughter of the sheik, his slave?"

"Our master does," said they--"our master, Cousrouf Pacha."

"How can the stranger dare to call the daughter of a free man, a free girl, his slave?"

"He dares do it because it is so," replied the eunuchs, shrugging their shoulders; "Masa sold herself to his excellency, our gracious master, to Cousrouf Pacha, when she procured your release by paying the second tax. You thought it was done out of kindness. No, Masa sold herself to our gracious master, Cousrouf Pacha, for one hundred gold sequins."

"That is false; you lie, you wretches! You lie in all you say! You lie!" cried the sheik. He now stood erect, regarding them threateningly. "Do not dare to speak to me thus again! Justice and law still live! No one can say that Masa, my daughter, is a slave; and may he who says it stand accursed before Allah and the prophets!"

The two eunuchs threw themselves upon him and held him fast. They then called two of the soldiers to their assistance, and bound him hand and foot. This done, they threw the old man contemptuously down upon his divan, and proceeded to ransack every part of the house in search of Masa, their master's runaway slave.

There lay the sheik, bound and helpless, groaning and lamenting: "I am mad! I hear that which is not. I hear voices say that which cannot be. No, I am mad! It is impossible that Masa, the daughter of the Sheik of Praousta, is the slave of the stranger Turk! Impossible that I can have heard such a thing! Death or even madness is approaching me. It creeps stealthily toward me and stares at me wildly. O Masa, my daughter, come save your father!"

About him all was still, but in the rooms above was an uproar. He heard the heavy footsteps in the upper apartments, into which, until now, no man save the father had ever entered. They are going from room to room, throwing the daughter's things about, ransacking her bedchamber, overthrowing furniture, and looking under carpets and mattresses, searching everywhere for the only daughter of the poor sheik. Then they go to the yard, to the stables. Masa is sought everywhere. But, Allah be praised, she cannot be found!

Without, before the door, stand the men and women of the village in a wide circle, gazing with dismay upon the eunuchs and the twelve soldiers, who now come out of the door, fall in line before the house, and demand of the people to tell them where Masa, the sheik's daughter, is.

"We know not. We have not seen her. How can we tell you what has become of Masa, the sheik's only daughter? She was as pure and good as ever girl was. No one looked at her. Who can tell where she is?"

"This is all pretence. Enough! we will go from house to house and search for Masa!"

With cries of rage the men attempt to oppose them, but the strange soldiers who have just arrived know no pity. They use their swords vigorously upon those who oppose them; the sight of blood terrifies the others, and the cries of the wounded silence them. The eunuchs'

soldiers are allowed to enter each house, for the men of Praousta are too poor to be able to provide for more than one wife, and the poor man's wife has no separate, secluded apartments. She goes about in the house unveiled, and attends to her domestic occupations while her husband is out hunting or fishing. The search of the eunuchs and soldiers for the girl is therefore easily conducted; in each house there is but one wife and she is unveiled, as are also the children; the maidens, however, timidly shrink back and draw their veils more closely about them. The strange soldiers, however, do not go so far in their boldness as to raise the veils of the girls. And what would it avail them to do so? Neither they nor the eunuchs have ever seen the face of the sheik's daughter.

"It is useless to search farther," murmured the eunuchs, after having looked through the last house in the village, without finding Masa. "It is useless. It was useless to look for her elsewhere than in the sheik's house, and there we did not find her. The law forbids our doing more, and the tschorbadji, when he placed the soldiers at the disposal of our gracious master, and ordered them to accompany us, expressly commanded that we should not enrage the men of Praousta to desperation, or to any thing contrary to law."

"But remember, brother," said the other eunuch, "what our master said. We must bring him back this runaway slave or we lose our heads! And truly I would much rather keep my head on my shoulders than have it rolled to the ground."

"And so would I mine," said the first. "Therefore we will do all we can to get possession of this slave. A week is a long time, and I hardly think we shall have to wait so long."

"There is one other matter we must not lose sight of," murmured the first eunuch, as they ascended the stairway to Cavalla, followed by the soldiers. "We are to watch the crazy young captain, the boulouk bashi, and report all he does, to our master. It seems to me there may be some connection between the young boulouk bashi and the flight of the slave. Let us keep our eyes open, for our heads are at stake."

And with gloomy looks they presented themselves to their master on their return to the palace, to inform him that they had made thorough search for Masa in the sheik's house, and had not found her.

"And have you nothing to report concerning the young man, Mohammed Ali?" asked the pasha.

The eunuchs informed him that they had not yet seen him, having as yet been wholly occupied with their search for the escaped slave; they would, however, have something to report to his excellency concerning the boulouk bashi on the following morning, or that very evening, perhaps.

"Who knows where Mohammed Ali now is?"

"He has not been seen at the palace since the reception of the soldiers in the court-yard."

"He must have gone to the hut his mother once occupied, as he often does when he wishes to be alone."

Of late he had been absent less than usual, having promised his friend Osman to live and stay with him. But now that he is captain of a company, it would perhaps not become him to remain at the palace as the tschorbadji's guest; for this reason he would probably go to his own hut to take up his abode there. Yes, he has passed the night in his own little house, and he has just quitted it and walked into the main street of the city, on his way to the store of the merchant Lion.

The merchant saw him coming, and hastened forward to congratulate him on the high honor conferred upon him, and to rejoice over the stately appearance of the young man, who pleased him well in his uniform, with his sword at his side.

"Truly a beautiful uniform, Mohammed Ali, and I have but one regret, and that is that your mother, Sitta Khadra, is not here to see you in your magnificence. How she would rejoice to see her son, her heart's darling, her Mohammed Ali, in all his glory!"

"I, too, wish my dear mother, Sitta Khadra, were here now," said Mohammed, with a sigh. "I have never before missed and needed her as much as now; and you are right, too, in thinking she would rejoice could she see me now. Yes, with all her heart, Mr. Lion. Ah life, were beautiful indeed, if Death were not always standing threateningly before us! He takes from us what we love most, and esteem highest; we must ever be on our guard against him, and keep our door barred that he may not steal into our midst and rob us of some fair life."

The merchant regards him with amazement. He has never heard the young boulouk bashi talk in this sentimental manner before, and it surprises him too, to see his countenance so changed--so radiant, serene, and cloudless, the chaste, thoughtful brows--so bright, the flash of his large brown eyes.