are capable of loving a woman like
me, as a woman and a Queen should be loved?'

"'I love you,' he replied, 'with all the passion of youth, with all my
soul.'

"'But,' said she, 'a Queen must be loved alone. She cannot consent to
divide the love of a man with any other woman.'

"'My charming and incomparable Queen,' he exclaimed, 'by Allah and the
Prophet of God! there is no woman that can stand beside you. The man
who is so happy as to possess you can want no other woman.'

"Ahesha laughed scornfully, and said, 'What an oath is that which you
use! I laugh at your Allah and his Prophet.'

"Mubarek was a young man of very hot blood and fierce passions, and
being brought up a strict Moslim, he was so much enraged at the Queen's
scoff, that no sooner were the words out of her mouth, than drawing
instantly a jewelled dagger which she wore at her girdle, he plunged it
into her heart.

"Then seeing the Queen lying at his feet with the blood gushing out of
her breast, he repented of his hasty act, but it was too late. He
perceived moreover that should he be discovered in that situation by
the enraged attendants of the beautiful Queen, he would be put to
death, probably with torture. At the same time, he knew neither where
he could find a place of safety nor how he should manage to obtain food
for the support of life in the midst of that city of idolaters.

"Wandering about the extensive gardens and groves surrounding the
palace, and expecting every moment to fall in with some party of the
royal guards who would seize him and take him prisoner, he came at
length, in a very retired part of the woods, to a small cavern or
grotto, and being very tired, he there laid himself down and very soon
fell asleep.

"When he awoke the air was cool and fresh. The stars, still
discernible, were fading in the light of the approaching dawn; and as
he left the grotto he hastened, drawn by an indefinable and insensible
impulse, to seek the place where he had left the body of the heathen
Queen.

"With some difficulty he again found the spot which had been the scene
of the love-making and the sudden tragedy on the previous day. The
body of the Queen was no longer there. It had evidently been
discovered and removed by her people. But precisely where her blood
had streamed out upon the ground a small shrub was growing, which
already bore a great number of bunches or clusters of a small fruit
resembling currants. Feeling very hu