pull it upon his shoulders, taking care to avoid holding
the creature where it could kick or struggle effectually, for despite
all the emir had told him of the gentleness of the odalisque, he was
resolved to take no chances. Whatever the creature was, she had slid
down, forming a limp lump at the end of the bag, when he charily
deposited it on the floor and turned to consult his dictionary before
untying it. He was going to know what the creature was before he dealt
with her further, a creature so large as that.

_Odalisque._ A slave or concubine in a Mohammedan harem!!

A woman!!!

Mr. Middleton tore at the string by which the bag was tied, full of
the keenest self-reproach. The uncomfortable position during the long
ride, the worse position in which she now lay. The knots refused to
budge and snatching a knife, with a mighty slashing, he ripped the bag
all away and disclosed the slender form of a woman crouched, huddled,
collapsed, face downward, head upon her knees. Turning her over and
supporting her against his breast in a sitting posture, Mr. Middleton
looked upon the most loveliness, unhappiness, and helplessness he had
ever beheld.

For a moment his heart almost stopped as he looked into the still
face, but he saw the bosom faintly flutter, slow tears oozed out from
under the long lashes of the closed lids, and the cupid's bow mouth
gave little twitches of misery and hopelessness. With what exquisite
emotions was he filled as he looked down upon the head pillowed upon
his breast, with what sentiments of anger, with what noble chivalry!

A Moslem woman. A Moslem woman, who even in the best estate of her sex
as free and a wife, goes to her grave like a dog, with no hope of a
life beyond, unless her husband amid the joys of Paradise should turn
his thoughts back to earth and wish for her there among his houris.
But this poor sweet flower had not even this faint expectation, for
she was no wife nor could be, slave of a Mohammedan harem. No rights
in this world nor the next. Not even the attenuated rights which law
and custom gave the free woman. No sustaining dream of a divine
recompense for the unmerited unhappiness of this existence. A slave, a
harem slave, wanted only when she smiled, was gay, and beautiful; who
must weep alone and in silence, in silence, with never a sympathetic
shoulder to weep upon after they sold her from her mother's side. Tied
in a bag, going she knew not whither, thrown in a carriage