not a
moment before I had despaired of seeing blessed with her presence. Oh
what a wonderful thing is love! thought I to myself: how it sharpens the
wits, and how fertile it is in expedients! I perceived at a glance how
ingeniously my charmer had contrived everything for our interview, and
for a continuance of it without the fear of interruption. She saw, but
took no notice of me until the storm below had ceased; and then, when
everything had relapsed into silence, she came towards me, and, as the
reader may well suppose, I was at her side in an instant. Ye, who know
what love is, may, perhaps, conceive our raptures, for they are not to
be expressed.

I learnt from my fair friend that she was the daughter of a Curdish
chief, who, with his whole family, including his flocks and herds,
had been made prisoner when she was quite a child; and that, from
circumstances which she promised hereafter to relate to me, she had
fallen into the hands of the doctor, whose slave she now was.

After the first burst of the sentiments which we felt towards each other
had subsided, she gave way to the feelings of anger, which she felt for
the treatment that she had just experienced. 'Ah!' she exclaimed,
'did you hear what that woman called me! woman, without faith, without
religion! 'Tis thus she always treats me; she constantly gives me abuse;
I am become less than a dog. Everybody rails at me; no one comes near
me; my liver is become water, and my soul is withered up. Why should I
be called a child of the devil? I am a Curd; I am a Yezeedi.[40] 'Tis
true that we fear the devil, and who does not? but I am no child of his.
Oh! that I could meet her in our mountains: she would then see what a
Curdish girl can do.'

I endeavoured to console her as well as I could, and persuaded her
to smother her resentment until she could find a good opportunity of
revenging herself. She despaired at that ever coming to pass; because
all her actions were so strictly watched, that she could scarcely go
from one room to another without her mistress being aware of it. The
fact was, so she informed me, that the doctor, who was a man of low
family, had, by orders of the king, married one of his majesty's slaves,
who, from some misconduct, had been expelled from the harem. She brought
the doctor no other dowry than an ill-temper, and a great share of
pride, which always kept her in mind of her former influence at court;
and she therefore holds her present husb