na was the light of the harem of the
Grand Turk. This supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was
the object of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she
was as ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections
of Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master of
millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the
undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path
all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how
remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his
son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence
and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son of Roxalana
herself.

This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was totally
uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with her lover,
and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not possessed of a cool
judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim was a statesman dealing
with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte, and that with her and with
her affairs he neither desired, nor had he the power, to interfere. What,
however, the Sultana did know was that in these same affairs of State her
opinion was dust in the balance when weighed against that of the Grand
Vizier.

Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring aptitude
for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim from among his
immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his choice. As time went
on and the intellect and power of the man became more and more revealed to
his master, that sovereign left in his hands even such matters as despots
are apt to guard most jealously. We have seen how, in spite of the
murmurings of the whole of his capital, and the almost insubordinate
attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din
Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favour of its being
carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that,
as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a
divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short;
this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the
minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman
to stick at trifles, and she decided that Ibrah