from my neck, now superseded by the bowstring. You presented it to
me when convinced of my attachment and my love. Take it, sultan, and
when you find one as faithful and as true, present it to her; but until
you do so, wear it in memory of Zara. And now let me throw my veil over
those features which have always beamed with love and delight on you,
that when I am dead, and you call them to your recollection, they may be
as you have been used to see them, and not black with convulsions and
distorted with agony. My lord, my dear and honoured lord, farewell!"

The sultan was deeply moved; he turned away his head, and covered his
face with one hand, while the other dropped at his side from the
intensity of his feelings.

Although it never was so intended, this dropping of his hand was
considered as the signal for my death. The string was tightened, and
buried itself, cutting deeply into the flesh of a neck once as fair and
smooth as the polished marble of Patras. For the first moments my
torture was excruciating--my eyes were forcing out of their sockets--my
tongue protruded from my mouth--my brain appeared to be on fire--but all
recollection soon departed.

* * * * *

"Staffir Allah! God forgive me! but are you not laughing at our beards,
old scarecrow? What think you, Mustapha?" continued the pacha, turning
to him. "What is all this but _lies_?"

"Lies!" screamed the old woman. "Lies! you tell me they are lies! Well,
well--the time has been. Pacha, after what I have suffered by telling
the truth all my life, it is hard, in my old age, to be told that I lie;
but you shall be convinced," and the old woman put her hands up to the
shrivelled, pendent skin of her neck, and stretching it out smooth,
showed a deep blue mark, which encircled it like a necklace. "Now are
you satisfied?"

The pacha nodded his head to Mustapha, as if convinced; and then said,
"You may proceed."

"Yes, I may proceed; but I tell you, pacha, that if you doubt what I say
once more, I will return your twenty pieces of gold, and hold my tongue.
I proved that I could do it as a young woman, and we become more
obstinate as we get old."

"That is no lie," observed Mustapha. "Continue, old woman, and we will
not interrupt you with doubts again."

* * * * *

My brother, who had watched every motion of the sultan's, and who had
determined to reveal all rather than that I should suffer, wh