nding look, proudly, majestically, as became a born
ruler. And yet death hovered over the head of him who dared to say, "I
am the prince!"

Thomar, forgetting himself, seized his sword, and would have rushed to
the defence of his sister but his comrades held him back. "What would
you do, unhappy wretch? Trust to Fate!"

Kara Makan, in savage defiance, approached the false prince with a
drawn sword in his hand.

"On your knees before me!" cried the odalisk, and indicating where he
should kneel with an imperious gesture, she looked steadily into the
eyes of the savage warrior.

The ferocious figure stood hesitatingly before her. The magic of her
look held the wild beast in him spellbound for an instant. His
bloodshot eyes slowly drooped, his hand, with its flashing sword, sank
down by his side, his knees gave way beneath him, and, falling down at
the feet of the young child, he submissively murmured a salaam,
kissing her hand and laying his bloody sword at her feet.

Milieva pressed her right hand on the head of the subdued rebel,
looked proudly and fearlessly upon the dumb-stricken rebels, and then,
raising the sword and giving it back to Kara Makan, she cried, "Go
before and open a way for me!"

As if in obedience to a magic word, the crowd parted on both sides
before her, and Kara Makan, with his sword over his shoulder, led the
way along. The crowd, with an involuntary homage, made way for her
everywhere from the Seraglio to the Seven Towers, and two
torch-bearers walked by her side, between whom she marched as proudly
as if she were making her triumphal progress. Nobody perceived the
deception. The resemblance of the young face to that of the prince,
the well-known festal raiment of the Feast of Bairam, her manly
bearing, all combined to keep up the delusion, and amongst this
_canaille_ which held her in its power there was not a single
dignitary who knew the prince intimately and might have detected the
fraud.

The Sultan had just been thrust into the dungeon of the Seven Towers,
that place of dismal memories for the Sultans and their families in
general. In that octagonal chamber, whose round windows overlooked the
sea, more than one mortal sigh had escaped from the lips of the
descendants of Omar, whom a powerful faction or a triumphant rival
had, sooner or later, condemned to death.

It was now morning, the uproar of the rebellion had died away outside,
the Seraglio was no longer besieged. It was now t