"Nine hundred," said the officer, with a promptness that attracted
the attention of the crowd.

"One thousand piasters," said his competitor, as he continued to
regard her exquisite and beautiful mould, and her features, so like
a picture, in their regular and artistic lines of beauty. It was
very plain that the old Turk felt, as he gazed upon her, so silent
yet so beautiful, that she was richly worth her weight in pearls.

"A thousand piasters," repeated the vender of the slave market,
turning once more to the officer, then added, as he received no
encouraging sign from him, "a thousands piasters, and sold!"

The officer regarded her with much interest, and turned away in
evident disappointment, for the old Turk who had outbid him, had
gone beyond any means that he possessed. The purchaser handed forth
the money in a couple of small bags, and throwing a close veil over
the head of the slave, led her away through the narrow and winding
streets of old Stamboul to the water's side, where they entered a
caique that awaited them, and pulled up the harbor.

Its shooting caiques, its forest of merchantmen, and its hoard of
Turkish war ships; were changed, in a few moments of swift pulling,
for the breathless solitude of the Valley of Sweet Waters, which
opens with a gentle curve from the Golden Horn, and winds away into
the hills towards Belgrade, where the river assumes the character of
a silvery stream, threading its way through a soft and verdant
meadow on either hand, as beautiful in aspect as the Prophet's
Paradise. The spot where the Sultan sends his swift-footed Arabians