rays of the moon, he
should doubtless be able to effect a perfect cure.

Satisfied fully of what he had seen and heard, he dismissed the
pretended Jew with a heavy purse of gold, and bade him choose his
own time, telling him also that his palace gates should ever be open
to him.

CHAPTER X.

THE SERENADE.

Beautiful as a poet's fancy can picture, is the seraglio, a fitting
home for the proud Turkish monarch, gemmed with gardens, fantastic
palaces, and every variety of building and tree on its gentle slope,
descending so gracefully towards the sea, spreading before the eye
its towers, domes, and dark spots of cypresses like a sacred
division of the city of Constantinople, as indeed it is to the eye
of the true believer.

The Sultan's household were removed at his will from the Valley of
Sweet Waters hither and back again, as fancy might dictate. Thus
Komel had met her lover Aphiz Adegah here before his sentence; and
here she was now, still queen of its royal master's heart, still the
fairest creature that shone in the Sultan's harem. Every luxury and
beauty that ingenuity could devise or wealthy purchase, surrounded
her with oriental profusion. Still left entirely to herself, the
same occupation employed her time, of tending flowers and toying
with beautiful birds. Sometimes the Sultan would come and sit by her
side, but he found that the wound he had given was not one to heal
so quickly as he had supposed, and that the Circassian cherished the
memory of Aphiz as tenderly as ever.

The idiot boy, almost the only person in whom she seemed to take any
real interest, still followed her footsteps hither and thither, now
toying with some pet of the gardens, a parrot or a dog, now
performing most incredible feats of legerdemain, running off upon
his hands, with his feet in a perpendicular position, to a distance,
and coming back again by a series of summersets, until suddenly
gathering his limbs and body together like a ball, he went off
rolling like a helpless mass down some gentle slope, and having
reached the bottom, would lie there as if all life were gone, for
the hour together, yet always so managing as to keep one eye upon
Komel nearly all the while.

The Circassian loved the poor half-witted boy, for love begets love,
and the lad had seemed to love her from the first moment they had
met in the Sultan's halls, since when they had been almost
inseparable.

It was on a fair summer's afternoon, that th