substance to both church and state, but there were
other things to consider, among them a spouse especially
selected by a council of High Pan-Jams, whose
decision, having been approved by their imperial master,
was not only binding, but final--so final that
death awaited any one who would dare oppose it. At
the feast of Ramazan the two should wed. Yuleima
might take second, third, or fortieth place--but not
first.

The young prince gritted his row of white teeth
and flashed his slumbering eyes--and they could
flash--blaze sometimes--with a fire that scorched.
Yuleima would be his, unsullied in his own eyes and
the world's, or she should remain in the little white
house on the brown hill and continue to blur her
beautiful eyes with the tears of her grief.

Then the favorite slave and the faithful caique-ji
--the one who found the little cove even on the darkest
night--put their heads together--two very cunning
and wise heads, one black and wrinkled and the
other sun-tanned and yellow--with the result that
one night a new odalisque, a dark-skinned, black-
haired houri, the exact opposite of the fair-skinned,
fair-haired Yuleima, joined the coterie in the harem
of the palace of the prince. She had been bought
with a great price and smuggled into Stamboul, the
story ran, a present from a distinguished friend of
his father, little courtesies like this being common