expressing to your gaolers that you have
already experienced some benefit from my visit, and announce your rising
confidence in my skill. In the meantime I will make such a report that
our daily meetings will not be difficult. For the present, farewell. The
Prince Mahomed waits without, and I would exchange some words with him
before I go."

"And must we part without my being acquainted with the generous friends
to whom I am indebted for an act of devotion which almost reconciles me
to my sad fate?" said Iduna. "You will not, perhaps, deem the implicit
trust reposed in you by one whom you have no interest to deceive, and
who, if deceived, cannot be placed in a worse position than she at
present fills, as a very gratifying mark of confidence, yet that trust
is reposed in you; and let me, at least, soothe the galling dreariness
of my solitary hours, by the recollection of the friends to whom I am
indebted for a deed of friendship which has filled me with a feeling of
wonder from which I have not yet recovered."

"The person who has penetrated the Seraglio of Constantinople in
disguise to rescue the Lady Iduna," answered Iskander, "is the Prince
Nicaeus."

"Nicaeus!" exclaimed Iduna, in an agitated tone. "The voice to which I
listen is surely not that of the Prince Nicaeus; nor the form on which I
gaze," she added, as she unveiled. Beside her stood the tall figure
of the Armenian physician. She beheld his swarthy and unrecognised
countenance. She cast her dark eyes around with an air of beautiful
perplexity.

"I am a friend of the Prince Nicaeus," said the physician. "He is here.
Shall he advance? Alexis," called cut, Iskander, not waiting for
her reply. The page of the physician came forward, but the eunuch
accompanied him. "All is right," said Iskander to Kaflis. "We are sure
of our hundred purses. But, without doubt, with any other aid, the case
were desperate."

"There is but one God," said the eunuch, polishing his carbuncle, with a
visage radiant as the gem. "I never repented patronizing men of science.
The prince waits without. Come along!" He took Iskander by the arm.
"Where is your boy? What are you doing there, sir?" inquired the eunuch,
sharply, of Nicaeus, who, was tarrying behind, and kissing the hand of
Iduna.

"I was asking the lady for a favour to go to the coffee-house with;"
replied Nicaeus, "you forget that I am to have none of the hundred
purses."

"True," said the eunuch; "there is something