r, depriving her of
strength, speech, and consciousness. She was dying of a slow and
incurable disease, which fed upon the body without weakening the
energies of the brain, and which had now reached its last stage. She
might live a month, or she might die that very night, but her end was
close at hand. With the iron determination of a tyrannical old woman,
she kept up appearances to the last, and had insisted on being carried
to the great hall and set in the place of honor upon the divan to
receive the visit of the physician. Indeed, for many days she had given
the slaves of her harem no rest, causing herself to be carried from one
part of the house to another, in the vain hope of finding some relief
from the pain which devoured her. All night the great rooms were
illuminated. Day and night the slaves exhausted themselves in the
attempt to amuse her: the trained and educated Circassian girl
translated the newspapers to her, or read aloud whole chapters of Victor
Hugo's Miserables, one of the few foreign novels which have been
translated into Turkish; the almehs danced and sang to their small
lutes; the black slaves succeeded each other in bringing every kind of
refreshment which the ingenuity of the Dalmatian cook could devise; the
whole establishment was in perpetual motion, and had rarely in the last
few days snatched a few minutes of uneasy rest when the Khanum slept her
short and broken sleep. It chanced that Laleli had all her life detested
opium, and was so quick to detect its presence in a sweetmeat or in a
sherbet, that now, when its use might have soothed her agonies, no
member of her household had the courage to offer it to her. Her
sleepless days and nights passed in the perpetual effort to obtain some
diversion from her pain, and with every hour it became more difficult to
satisfy her craving for change and amusement.

Balsamides came forward, touching his hand to his mouth and forehead;
and then approaching nearer, he awaited her invitation to sit down. The
old woman made a feeble, almost palsied gesture with her thin white
hand, and Gregorios advanced and seated himself upon the divan at some
distance from his patient.

"His Majesty has sent you?" she inquired presently, slowly turning her
head and fixing her beady eyes upon his face. Her voice was weak and
hoarse, scarcely rising above a whisper.

"It is his Majesty's pleasure that I should use my art to stay the hand
of death," replied Balsamides. "Hi