to
the cold stone. The Janissary might now say whatever he would, the
Sultan neither listened to nor answered him.

At last the rough warrior, who had jumped so suddenly into power,
shouted angrily to his comrades, who were cooling their heels outside,
"Bring hither the prince!"

The Sultan heard the pattering of many footsteps in the corridor
outside, and the clashing of swords mingled with the murmuring of
voices, but he did not look in that direction.

"Behold!" cried Kara Makan, advancing towards him, "here is thy son! A
drawn sword hovers above his head! Choose either to see thine own name
at the foot of that paper or his head at thy feet!"

Mahmoud trembled, but he answered nothing, nor did he turn his head.

"Write, or thy son dies!" cried a number of the Janissaries, suddenly.

Then a musical, familiar voice responded amidst the wild uproar:

"My father! hearken not unto them! Let them slay me if they be valiant
enough, but chaffer not with thy slaves!"

Mahmoud looked up in astonishment at this well-known voice, and saw
before him a handsome figure in the prince's garments and with a proud
and majestic countenance; but that face, though familiar to him and
very dear, was not his son's face. Ah, it was Milieva!

The odalisk perceived that Mahmoud's features softened, that he looked
tenderly upon her; and as if she feared that the Sultan might yield
out of compassion towards her, she hastily turned her flaming face to
the Janissaries and exclaimed:

"Ye blood-thirsty dogs of Samound! who bay down the sun from the
heavens, accomplish your bloody work! Forward, ye valiant heroes, with
whose backs alone the enemy is familiar, fall upon me in twos and
threes, if any one of you has not the courage to plunge his steel
single-handed into the heart of the last scion of Omar's stock! My
death will not constrain the Sultan to bargain with you. Kill me while
you have power over me, for if ever I have power over you I will not
weep before you, as ye have seen Mahmoud and Selim weep; but I will so
utterly destroy you that even he who wears a garment like unto yours,
even he who shall mention your name, shall pronounce his own doom."

The infuriated rebels raised their flashing swords above the head of
the presumptuous child at these menacing words; another moment and she
would have lain in the dust. But Mahmoud arose, spurned them aside
from the prince, as they supposed him to be, and taking from the hands
of Kar