"Oh, say that thou dost not love her, say that thou dost not know her, and I will release her--I will release her for thee at the risk of my own life."

The reply of Feriz was unmercifully cold.

"Believe that I love her, and in that belief sacrifice thyself for her.

This night I will wait for her wherever thou desirest, and will take her away if thou wilt fetch her. It was thy desire to know me, and I would know thee also. Thou art free to come or go as thou choosest."

The odalisk hid her tearful face in the carpets on the floor, and writhed convulsively to the feet of Feriz, moaning piteously.

"Oh, Feriz, thou art merciless to me."

"Thou wouldst not be the first who had sacrificed her life for love."

"But none so painfully as I."

"And art thou not proud to do so, then?"

At these words the woman raised a pale face, her large eyes had a moonlight gleam like the eyes of a sleep-walker. She seized the hand of Feriz in order to help herself to rise.

"Yes, I am proud to die for thee. I will show that here--within me--there is a heart which can feel n.o.bly--which can break for that which it loves, for that which kills it--that pride shall be mine. I will do it."

And then, as if she wished to clear away the gathering clouds from her thoughts, she pa.s.sed her hand across her forehead and continued in a lower, softer voice:

"This night, when the muezzin calls the hour of midnight, be in front of the fortress-garden on thy fleetest horse. Thou wilt not have to wait long; there is a tiny door there which conceals a hidden staircase which leads from the fortress to the trenches. I will come thither and bring her with me."

Feriz involuntarily pressed the hand of the girl kneeling before him, and felt a burning pressure in his hand, and when he looked at the young face before him he saw the smile of a sublime rapture break forth upon her radiantly joyful features.

Azrael parted from Feriz an altogether transformed being, another heart was throbbing in her breast, another blood was flowing to her heart, earth and heaven had a different colour to her eyes. She believed that the youth would love her if she died for him, and that thought made her happy.

But Feriz summoned Gregory Biro, and having recompensed him, sent him back to his mistress with the message:

"Thy wish hath been accomplished."

So sure was he that Azrael would keep her word--if only she were alive to do so.

Ha.s.san Pasha waited and waited for Azrael. If the odalisk was not with him he felt as helpless as a child who has strayed away from its nurse.

In the days immediately following the lost battle, the shame attaching to him and his agonized fear for his life had quite confused his mind; and the drugs employed at that time, combined with restless nights, the prayers of the dervishes, the joys of the harem and opium, had completed the ruin of his nervous system. If he were left alone for an hour he immediately fainted, and when he awoke it was in panic terror--he gazed around him like one in the grip of a hideous nightmare. For some days he would leave off his opium, but as is generally the case when one too suddenly abandons one's favourite drug, the whole organism threatened to collapse, and the renunciation of the opium did even more mischief than its enjoyment.

When Azrael rejoined him he was asleep, the chain by which he held the Princess had fallen from his hand and when he awoke there was a good opportunity of persuading him that Mariska had escaped from him while he slept.

Ha.s.san looked long and blankly at her, it seemed as if he would need some time wherein to rally his scattered senses sufficiently to recognise anyone. But Azrael was able to exercise a strange magnetic influence over him, and he would awake from the deepest sleep whenever she approached him.

Azrael sat down beside the couch and embraced the Vizier, while Mariska, with tender bashfulness, turned her head away from them; and Ha.s.san, observing it, drew Azrael's head to his lips and whispered in her ear:

"I have had evil dreams again. Hamaliel, the angel of dreams, appeared before me, and gave me to understand that if I did not kill this woman, he would kill me. My life is poisoned because she is here. My mind is not in proper order. I often forget who I am. I fancy I am living at Stambul, and looking out of the window am amazed that I do not see the Bosphorus. This woman must die. This will cure me. I will kill her this very day."

Mariska did not hear these words, all her attention was fixed upon the babbling of her child; and Azrael, with an enchanting smile, flung herself on the breast of the Vizier, embracing his waggling head and covering his face with kisses, and the smile of her large dark eyes illuminated his gloomy soul.

Poor Ha.s.san! He fancies that that enchanting smile, that embrace, those kisses are meant for him, but the shape of a handsome youth hovers before the mind of the odalisk, and that is why she kisses Ha.s.san so tenderly, embraces him so ardently, and smiles so enchantingly. She fancies 'tis her ideal whom she sees and embraces.

Ah, the extravagances of love!

CHAPTER XVIII.

SPORT WITH A BLIND MAN.

Azrael had felt afraid when Ha.s.san said: "I must kill this woman to-day." A fearful spectre was haunting the mind of the Vizier; he must be freed from this spectre, and made to forget it.

So Azrael devised an odd sport for the man on the verge of imbecility.

The seven days had pa.s.sed during which Ha.s.san had forbidden that anyone should be admitted to his presence, and it occurred to Azrael that in the ante-chamber crowds of brilliant envoys, and couriers, and supplicants were waiting, all eagerly desirous of an audience, many of them with rich gifts; others came to render homage, others with joyful tidings from the seat of war; whilst one of them had come all the way from the Grand Vizier with a very important message from the Sultan himself.

Ha.s.san's stupid mind brightened somewhat at these words, a fatuously good-natured smile lit up his face.

"Let them come in, let them appear before me," he said joyfully to the girl; "and remain thou beside me and introduce them to me one by one; thine shall be the glory of it."

But in reality none was awaiting an audience in the ante-room, there were no splendid envoys there, no humble pet.i.tioners, no agas, no messengers, none but the Vizier's own slaves.

But these Azrael dressed up one by one to look like splendid magnates, village magistrates, and soldiers; put sealed letters, purses, and banners in their hands, and placing Ha.s.san in the reception-room on a lofty divan, sat down with the Princess on stools at his feet, and ordered the door-keepers to admit the disguised slaves one by one.

The mockery was flagrant, but was there among them all any who dared to enlighten Ha.s.san? Who would undertake to undeceive him when a mere nod from Azrael might annihilate before the Vizier could realise that they were making sport of him? It was a fleet-winged demon fooling a sluggish mammoth with strength enough to crush her but with no wings to enable it to get at her, and the rabble always takes the part of the mocker, not of the mocked, especially if the former be lucky and the latter unlucky.

The loutish slaves came one by one into the room, and Ha.s.san turned his face towards them, remaining in that position while Azrael told him who they were and what they wanted.

"This is Ferhad Aga," said the odalisk, pointing at a stable-man, "who, hearing of thy martial prowess in all four corners of the world has come hither begging thee with veiled countenance to include him among thy armour-bearers."

Ha.s.san most graciously extended his hand to the stable-man and granted him his pet.i.tion.

Azrael next presented to Ha.s.san a cook from a foreign court, who, dressed in a large round mantle of cloth of silver, might very well have pa.s.sed for a burgomaster of Debreczen, and whose shoulders bent beneath the weight of two sacks of gold and silver from Ha.s.san's own treasury.

"This is the magistrate of the city of Debreczen," said the odalisk, "who hath brought thee a little gift in the name of the munic.i.p.ality, with the pet.i.tion that when thou dost become the Pasha of Transylvania thou wilt not forget them."

Ha.s.san smiled at the word money, had the sacks placed before him, thrust his arms into them up to his very wrists with great satisfaction, had their contents emptied at his feet, and dismissed the envoy with a hearty pressure of the hand.

And now followed a negro, who brought some recaptured Turkish banners from the bed of a river which did not exist, in which the Turks had drowned the whole army of Montecuculi.

Ha.s.san was now in such a weak state of mind that he no longer recognised his own people in their unwonted garments, and the more extraordinary the things reported to him the more readily he believed them.

And so Azrael kept on exhibiting to him envoys, couriers, and captains till, at last, it came to the turn of the envoy of the Grand Vizier, whose part the odalisk had entrusted to a clever eunuch who had been instructed to present to Ha.s.san a sealed firman, which Azrael was to read because Ha.s.san could not see the letters. It was to the effect that Ha.s.san was to endeavour to preserve the life of the captive Princess, as the Grand Vizier himself intended in a few days to take her over alive.

When thus it seemed good to Azrael that the most striking scene of the whole game should begin she exclaimed in a loud voice to the door-keepers:

"Admit the amba.s.sador of the Grand Vizier with the message from the Sublime Padishah!"