n
abandoning the spot where I was born. Console my parents and brother for
my loss. Strengthen my spirit, and abandon not this, Thy unhappy
creature, who always trusted in Thee--make her one day happy in the
mansions of the just, with those blessed souls whom Thou electest for
Thy greater glory and adoration."

After she had remained a few moments longer in silent devotion, the
muleteer, being apprised that it was time to start, rudely tore her from
her knees, and with a brutal and reckless violence, capable of revolting
the hardest hearts, placed her on the saddle. Lashing her already
fettered feet with a thick cord, he bound it also around her wrists,
bruising her delicate flesh; and tying a rope in numerous coils round
her body, he lashed it to the harness of the mule. The savage Moor
having made all secure, tightened the lashings, and seemed to delight
above measure in the excruciating torture he thus inflicted upon his
patient victim. Not a word, not a complaint escaped her; nor did her
grave and composed demeanor forsake her for an instant, though she
regarded her tormentor with a look of suffering patience, unspeakably
affecting. The soldiers, who had looked on in silence during this scene,
now shouldered their arms; the muleteer mounting the baggage mule, and
leading, by his right hand, that which carried the youthful prisoner,
from which the soldiers never for an instant withdrew their eyes, soon
set the animals in motion by the well-known touch of the spur, and the
journey commenced--when, for the first time, a piercing cry escaped the
lips of the fair Sol:--"Adieu! adieu!" exclaimed she; "adieu for ever,
my native land!" And soon they entered on the road to Fez.

If the unconcerned spectators were moved even to tears on witnessing
this scene, what were the feelings of the parents who were eye-witnesses
of all that passed! Love, tenderness, and sorrow, every emotion that
could agitate them, struggled for utterance within their breasts. Haim
and Simla and the young Ysajar, fell on their knees, and sent up to
Heaven their hearts' supplications; they followed with their eyes the
departing cavalcade, their gaze riveted like those of a spectre; no need
was there now to enjoin them to keep silence, for their utterance was
stifled on their lips; a red-hot iron seemed to weigh upon their
breasts; they raised their eyes to the heavens, to that beautiful
African sky, pure and transparent as an arch of azure crystal, an