t alone to ponder upon his singular situation. It was not an
easy task for him to divest his mind of the thought that all was a
dream, so singular were the threads of the past woven together since
the happy hours when Komel and himself bade good night at her
father's cottage door.

As to the fair and beautiful slave herself, she was conducted back
to the harem, at the same time that Aphiz was borne away to prison,
but a new world had opened to her. Her voice and hearing, lost by
the fearful shock she had realized by that sight of bloodshed on the
night when they stole her away from her parents, had, strangely
enough, been again restored by a shock scarcely less potent in its
effect upon her. That startling scream which she uttered on
beholding Aphiz had loosened the portals of her ears, and the
violent effort made in order to utter that exclamation had again
loosened the power of utterance. In spite of the attending
circumstances, she could not but rejoice at the return of those
faculties that she had now been taught the value of.

The delight of the Sultan at Komel's recovery of her speech and
hearing, was only equalled by his uneasiness at the extraordinary
position of affairs between himself and the man who had so gallantly
saved his life on the Belgrade plains. Loving his slave so tenderly,
what could he do under the circumstances? He now found the music of
her voice as delicious as the almost angelic beauty of her form and
features, and so charmed was he with the improvement that Komel
evinced, and so did he love to listen to her voice, that he could
even bear to hear her plead for Aphiz, and beseech that he might be
brought to her. Much as this would have been against his own
feelings and wishes, still to have her talk to him he listened
patiently, or seemed to do so, even while she besought him thus.

There was another being whose joy at Komel's recovery of her speech
seemed, if possible, more extravagant even than the Sultan's, and
far more remarkable in manifestation. When the idiot boy first heard
her voice, he started, and crouching like an animal, crept away to a
spot whence he could observe her without himself being seen. By
degrees he drew nearer, and finally received her kind tokens without
any evidences of fear. And by degrees, as she spoke to him and
tutored her words to his simple capacity, he seemed to be filled
with the very ecstasy of joy, and ran and leaped like a hound newly
loosed from confin