"My love dresses you in purple and gold, and I wish to see Sitta Khadra the most brilliant among women." A blissful smile suffused itself over his features. But suddenly this smile disappeared, and his countenance assumed an expression of care and anxiety. At this moment he saw how pale his mother was. Her pallor contrasted strangely with the purple lustre of the goods she held in her hands.

"You are not ill, Mother Khadra; you are not suffering?" said he, in the same anxious tone in which he had so often asked.

"No, my son, I am not ill," said she, regarding him calmly.

"When I shall some day wear this beautiful dress, and this gold- embroidered veil, you will take delight in me. Thank you, child of my heart, light of my eyes! Thank you for this, splendid present I will hold it in honor while life lasts."

"I thank you for accepting it, and beg you not to be angry with me for having been so violent," said Mohammed, entreatingly, as he kissed his mother's extended hand. "Tell me once more, mother, are you well; do you feel no pain?"

"I feel well, and am not suffering," said she, regarding him lovingly. 'I should gladly see you indulge yourself in one of your walks to the cliffs or mountains. It is long since you have taken one. I feel better than usual. I shall go to your sick uncle to wait on him, and when I return I shall lie down. You need not fear that I am waiting for you. Go to the mountains, beloved of my heart!"

"I shall do so gladly," he cried, embracing and kissing her heartily. He then walked with hasty steps to the door of the hut, and out into the free air.

CHAPTER V

THE STORY-TELLER

"I HAVE done work enough to day," murmured Mohammed to himself, as, after having left his mother, he walked through the dirty suburb to the stairway hewn in the rock that led down to the cliffs. "Yes, I have worked enough, and mother is well; I will therefore go to my paradise, and rest there awhile."

He sprang down the stairway and walked hastily toward the cliffs.

After looking cautiously around, he crept through the narrow opening in the rocks into the passage. The silence did him good, and a happy smile played about his lips. "Here I am king," he cried, loudly and joyously. "This is my realm, and I shall soon enter my throne- chamber. How have I longed for this, how glad am I!" Suddenly he stood still. "What were Mother Khadra's words?" he asked himself.

"'Only he who practises self-denial can enjoy.' Have I not always said to myself that I would accustom myself to want, and learn to enjoy by denying myself that which pleases me? Have I not said that I would not walk on rose-leaves, but learn to tread on thorns, that my feet might become inured to pain? And now, like a foolish child, I am delighted at the prospect of entering my cave, my throne- chamber! 'Only he who practises self-denial can enjoy.' Remember that, Mohammed, and learn to practise self-denial; I will learn it!"

he cried so loudly that his voice resounded throughout the entire cave.

He turned and retraced his steps. "I would gladly have gone into my cave, would gladly have reclined on my mat, have looked up at the blue sky, and down into the beautiful, sea, that tells me such wondrous stories. Folly! I can hear stories elsewhere. Scha-er Mehsed tells stories, too, and on the whole that is more convenient than to tell them to myself."

He walks on hastily, without turning once to look back at his beloved grotto, walks on into the world, to men whom he does not love, and who do not love him.

He will learn to practise self-denial, and joyfully he now says to himself: "I am already learning it, and now I can also enjoy."

At this moment he observed Tschorbadji Hassan, who had just turned a corner of the street, advancing, followed by his servants.

When he perceived the boy, he stood still and greeted him with a gracious smile. Mohammed, his arms folded on his breast, inclined his head profoundly before the mighty man.

"See, Mohammed! The splendid shot! You come at the right moment, Mohammed; I had already sent out a slave after you. Osman, my poor sick son, craves a strange repast. He has seen pigeons whirling through the air, and thinks, probably, because he knows they are not easily to be had, that there can be nothing better in the world than a roasted wild pigeon. Now, I know, Mohammed Ali, that no one can use a gun better than yourself, and it would give me great satisfaction to have you procure some of these birds for my son."

"I will do it gladly, because it is for Osman," replied Mohammed. "I will bring them myself, within the hour. I beg you, gracious master, to tell your son that I am glad to be able to do something for him.

I must be off after my gun."

Mohammed withdraws himself with a total absence of ceremony, not waiting until Tschorbadji Hassan Bey dismisses him with a gracious wave of the hand. He flies to his mother's hut, takes down his gun from the wall, and loads it. He then climbs rapidly among the cliffs in search of the wild-pigeons for the poor sick Osman.

In an hour, Mohammed returned with his game. As he walked along, carrying the four birds in his band, he said to himself with a smile: "Was it not well that I learned to deny myself a pleasure?

And here I have the recompense, the enjoyment. For it is a recompense to be able to gratify a wish of dear good Osman; he was always so kind to me."

He now entered the court-yard of the palace in which Tschorbadji Hassan Bey resided. An Armenian slave stood at the gate, who seemed to have been awaiting the boys. He bowed profoundly, which he had never done before, and announced that his grace Osman Bey was in the garden, and had ordered that Mohammed Ali should bring the pigeons himself, and that Tschorbadji Hassan was also there awaiting him.

"Show me the way, I will follow," said Mohammed, whose tranquil countenance gave no indication that he felt flattered at the great honor of being admitted to the garden.

The Armenian led the way with an air of profound respect. Proudly, his head erect, Mohammed followed him through the wide hall of the palace and into the garden.

The fragrance arising from the carefully-cultivated flower-beds was delightful; the kiosks and baldachins were so charming! "Paradise must be like this," thought Mohammed, and he breathed the fragrant air with delight. But he turned his head neither to the right nor to the left, that no one might observe how wondrously beautiful everything seemed to him, and that he had never before seen any thing so magnificent.

There, under the beautiful tent with the golden tassels, and the gold-glittering star--there, on a couch, reclined a pale, thin boy, and at his side, on a chair richly embroidered, sat Tschorbadji Hassan.

As Mohammed now advanced with elastic step, his head erect, the two looked at him in admiration.

"How splendid he looks!" murmured the pale boy. "That is health, father, and life. He is just my age, and only look at me!"

The tschorbadji suppressed a sigh, and smiled gently as he looked at his son. "You are ill, my Osman. Allah will grant you speedy recovery, and then you will become strong and healthy like Mohammed Ali.--Well!" he cried to the boy who had stood still at some distance with his birds in his hand--"well, I see you have kept your word, and brought my son the wild-pigeons."

"I have, and am glad that I was able to do so." replied Mohammed, as he now came nearer in obedience to the bey's request, and greeted the pale boy with a joyous smile.

"Give me your hand, Mohammed," said the young boy, who had partially risen from his cushions, and was supporting himself on his elbow.

Timidly, Mohammed took the boy's pale, thin hand in his own.

"Tell me, Mohammed, why do you not come to see me oftener? You know how glad I always am to see you."

"Master, he did not visit you, because it does not become the poor to intrude upon the rich and noble," replied Mohammed, his eyes fixed with an anxious expression on Osman's pale face.

"Rich and noble!" repeated Osman, with a sigh. "You are rich, Mohammed, for you are healthy. You are noble, Mohammed; for the inhabitants of the sea and of the air must obey you. You have power, and that is nobility."

The tschorbadji was displeased with these humble words of his son, and his brow became clouded.

"I think you should be content with your riches and nobility, my son," said he. "Come, hand me the pigeons, Mohammed."

He took the beautifully feathered birds from Mohammed's hand, looked at them, and let their feathers play in the sun light. "Yes, they are still warm; so the world goes. An hour since they disported themselves in life's sunshine. The child of man comes, sends a few shot through their bodies, and their glory is at an end. But, I thank you, Mohammed, for having so quickly complied with our wish.

Here is your reward." He took two gold-pieces from his purse and handed them to the boy in his outstretched hand.

Mohammed did not take them. He drew back at the words of the governor, a deep color suffusing itself over his cheeks.

Osman perceived this, and motioned to him to come nearer to his couch. "Mohammed," said he, "father forgot to add for what purpose he wished to give you the money. Not for yourself. I know that your procuring these pigeons for me was an act of friendship. You have always been friendly to me, and I shall never forget what you did for me the other day."

"What was it?" asked the tschorbadji, with surprise.

"You know nothing of it, father. I did not mention it to you because I feared it might make you angry," replied Osman, gently. "I had had myself carried out on the rock. You know I like to rest there, in the sunlight, under the olive-tree that stretches out its limbs over the water. From that point you can look so far out over the sea.

There you can see where heaven and earth unite, and strange dreams and wishes overcome over me there. The sea murmurs at my feet in such wondrous, mysterious tones, that my heart warms and my breast expands. The physician, too, had said that I should breathe the fresh air of the cliffs very often, and I had been carried out, and lay there at rest in sweet, solitary silence. I did not observe that the sky was darkening, and a storm coming on. It also escaped the notice of the two servants who had carried me out in the chair. Now that the rain already began to fall in large drops, they became alarmed, and both ran away rapidly to procure a covered palanquin, as the physician had said I must be carefully guarded against taking cold. They had hardly gone and left me alone when it began to rain harder, and I felt the large drops slowly trickling down upon me through the leaves of the olive-tree. The rain was very cold. The storm raged and tore the protecting foliage of the tree apart.

Suddenly I heard footsteps. It was Mohammed Ali. He was rapidly passing by, but when he saw me lying there under the tree, alone, he came up to me, and understood the situation at a glance. In spite of my resistance, he spread his body over me, and protected me from the rain and discomfort.

"When the servants arrived with the palanquin I had remained perfectly dry, while Mohammed was wet to the skin. I begged him to come with me. I begged him to accept a gift. He refused both, and cried, laughing, as he ran away to escape my further thanks: 'For me it was only a welcome bath! You it would have hurt, Osman.'"

"Good, by Allah! That was well done," said the tschorbadji, with his aristocratic smile. "You served my son as an umbrella. I thank you for it, Mohammed, and will reward you. A new mantle shall be brought you, for I perceive that your own is torn and old."

"I thank you, master. It is good enough for me. This mantle is an inheritance from my father. Mother preserved it for ten years, and now I wear it, and wear it with pride, as a souvenir of my father.

Thanks for your kind offer."