servants, Abdullah, the Chief Mufti, and Damad Ibrahim, the Grand
Vizier, were waiting on their knees for an audience in the vestibule of
the Seraglio. They desired, he said, to communicate important news
touching the safety and honour of the Empire.

The Sultan had not yet given an answer when, through the door leading
from the harem, popped the Kizlar-Aga, the chief eunuch, a respectable,
black-visaged gentleman with split lips, who had the melancholy
privilege of passing in and out of the Sultan's harem at all hours of
the day and night, and finding no pleasure therein.

"Kizlar-Aga, my faithful servant! what dost thou want?" inquired Achmed
going to meet him, and raising him from the ground whereon he had thrown
himself.

"Most gracious Padishah!" cried the Kizlar-Aga, "the flower cannot go on
living without the sun, and the most lovely of flowers, that most
fragrant blossom, the Sultana Asseki, longs to bask in the light of thy
countenance."

At these words the features of Achmed grew still more gentle, still more
radiant with smiles. He signified to the Khas-Oda-Bashi and the
Kapu-Agasi that they should withdraw into another room, while he
dispatched the Kizlar-Aga to bring in the Sultana Asseki.

Adsalis, for so they called her, was a splendid damsel of Damascus. She
had been lavishly endowed with every natural charm. Her skin was whiter
than ivory and smoother than velvet. Compared with her dark locks the
blackest night was but a pale shadow, and the hue of her full smiling
face put to shame the breaking dawn and the budding rose. When she gazed