maidens,
and at last, without remarking the Khan or his wife, pushed himself to
the bed of the sufferer, and fell, almost senseless, on his knees beside
it.

The sudden and noisy arrival of Ammalat aroused the sad society present.
Seltanetta, whose existence death was already overpowering, seemed as if
awakening from the deep forgetfulness of fever; her cheeks flushed with
a transient colour, like that on the leaves of autumn before they fall:
in her clouded eye beamed the last spark of the soul. She lad been for
several hours in a complete insensibility; she was speechless,
motionless, hopeless. A murmur of anger from the bystanders, and a loud
exclamation from the stupefied Ammalat, seemed to recall the departing
spirit of the sick, she started up--her eyes sparkled.... "Is it
thou--is it thou?" she cried, stretching, forth her arms to him: "praise
be to Allah! now I am contented, now I am happy," she added, sinking
back on the pillow. Her lips wreathed into a smile, her eyelids closed,
and again she sank into her former insensibility.

The agonized Asiatic paid no attention to the questions of the Khan, or
the reproaches of the Khansha: no person, no object distracted his
attention from Seltanetta--nothing could arouse him from his deep
despair. They could hardly lead him by force from the sick chamber; he
clung to the threshold, he wept bitterly, at one moment praying for the
life of Seltanetta, at another accusing heaven of her illness! Terrible,
yet moving, was the grief of the fiery Asiatic.

Meanwhile, the appearance of Ammalat had produced a salutary influence
on the sick girl. What the rude physicians of the mountains were unable
to accomplish, was effected by his arrival. The vital energy, which had
been almost extinguished, needed some agitation to revivify its action;
but for this she must have perished, not from the disease, which had
been already subdued, but from languor--as a lamp, not blown out by the
wind, but failing for lack of air. Youth at length gained the victory;
the crisis was past, and life again arose in the heart of the sufferer.
After a long and quiet slumber, she awoke unusually strengthened and
refreshed. "I feel myself as light, mother," she cried, looking gaily
around her, "as if I were made wholly of air. Ah, how sweet it is to
recover from illness; it seems as if the walls were smiling upon me.
Yet, I have been very ill--long ill. I have suffered much; but, thanks
to Allah! I am