night in a cellar full of scorpions and scolopendras, or in the Tower of
Surem, which is haunted by the accursed Jinns, than pass a single night
in the same room with this slave-girl."

"Why; what's this, Halil? you fill me with amazement. Surely, it cannot
be that you are that Mussulman of whom all Pera is talking?--the man I
mean who purchased a slave-girl in order to be her slave?"

"It is as you say. But 'twere better not to talk of that matter at all.
Those five thousand piastres of yours are the cause of it; they have
ruined me out and out. My mind is going backwards I think. When people
come to my shop to buy wares of me, I give them such answers to their
questions that they laugh at me. Let us change the subject, let us
rather talk of your affairs. Have you found your daughter yet?"

It was now Janaki's turn to sigh.

"I have sought her everywhere, and nowhere can I find her."

"How did you lose her?"

"One Saturday she went with some companions on a pleasure excursion in
the Sea of Marmora in a sailing-boat. Their music and dancing attracted
a Turkish pirate to the spot, and in the midst of a peaceful empire he
stole all the girls, and contrived to dispose of them so secretly that I
have never been able to find any trace of them. I am now disposed to
believe that she was taken to the Sultan's Seraglio."

"You will never get her out of there then."