their
best to entertain the invited guest. Mockery of religious subjects was
no unusual thing with Turkish magnates in those days. Blasphemy had
gone so far as to become an open scandal; popular fanaticism and
official orthodoxy made it all the more glaring.

So the sons of Ali Pasha invited the Prophet to be their guest, and
had made up their minds that if he did appear among them he would not
be bored.

All the odalisks danced and sung before them in turn, and the brethren
diverted themselves by judging which of the damsels was the sweetest
and loveliest.

In every song, in every dance, Rebecca, Mukhtar Bey's beautiful Jewish
damsel, and the blue-eyed bayadere Lizza, who was Sulaiman Bey's
favorite, equally excelled. It was impossible to decide which of the
twain deserved the palm. At last they were made to dance together.

"Look!" cried Mukhtar, his eyes sparkling with delight, "look! didst
ever behold a more beautiful figure? Like the flowering branch of the
Ban-tree she sways to and fro. How proudly she throws her head back,
and looks at thee so languishingly that thou meltest away for very
rapture! Would that her light feet might dance all over me; would that
she might encompass every part of me like the atmosphere!"

"She really is charming," admitted Sulaiman, "and if the other were
not dancing by her side, she would be the first star in the firmament
of beauty. But ah! one movement of the other one is worth all the life
in her body. She is but a woman, the other is a sylph. She kills you
with rapture, the other raises you from the dead."

"Thou are unjust, Sulaiman," said Mukhtar; "thou dost judge only with
thine eyes. If thou wouldst take counsel of thy lips, they would speak
more truly. Taste her kisses, and then say which of them is the
sweeter."

With that he beckoned to the two odalisks. Rebecca, the lovely Jewish
damsel, sank full of amorous languor on Sulaiman's breast, while
Lizza, with sylph-like agility, sat her down upon his knee, and the
intoxicated Bey, in an access of rapture, kissed first one and then
the other.

"Rebecca's lips are more ardent," he cried, "but the kisses of Lizza
are sweeter. The kiss of Rebecca is like the poppy which lulls you
into sweet unconsciousness, but Lizza's kiss is like sweet wine which
makes you merry."

"Lizza's kiss may perchance be like sweet wine," interrupted Mukhtar,
"but Rebecca's kiss is like heavenly musk which only the Blessed may
partake of,