The Sultan smiled at these words; 'I see, madam,' said he, 'that you
are ignorant of your own condition---you are in this place for
life---when once a woman has entered within these walls, there is no
hope of ever getting out again, law and custom have decreed it so.
Therefore you are more obliged to me than you imagined, for the respect
I have paid you, being from the first moment the master of your
destiny.' I then intreated he would give me three days to answer him;
he granted my request, and I spent them in prayers: but at length seeing
myself without any hope of relief, or ever returning to my country, that
my death there was thought certain, and that I had no means of letting
you know I was living, or if I had, could not promise myself, that,
since you had consented to my death, the news would find a welcome:
I looked on myself as utterly abandoned; and the facility of following
in private my own devotions, determined me, in submitting to the
Sultan's persuasions. The three days being expired, he came to me again,
and I then told him, that if he would swear never to force me to alter
my religion, I was ready to give him my hand. His joy at my consent was
inconceiveable; and though he saw plainly that what I did was out of
necessity, he assured me he thought himself the happiest man on earth,
and bound himself by an oath sacred in their law, to suffer me to
exercise my own religion, provided I took care not to be discovered.

* * * * *
* * * *

"This news was soon blazed through all Almeria, and fated ever to be
guilty of constrained infidelities, I was proclaimed and crowned Sultana
Queen, with a magnificence that would have dazzled any one but the
Princess de Ponthieu. During the whole ceremony, the image of Thibault
never quitted me, I spoke to it, begged its pardon, in short, I was so
lost in thought, that Sayda has since told me I had more the appearance
of a statue than a living person. As for you, my lord, I often
reproached your cruelty, that had brought me to the precipice in which I
found myself. There has not passed one day in the nine years I have been
married to the Sultan, on which I have not talked of my dear Thibault to
the faithful Sayda, with a torrent of tears. The Sultan has kept his
word with me, all his court thinks me a Renegada, he alone knows the
truth, and without reproaching me with my melancholy, has done his
utmost to disperse