saved his life on the Belgrade plains. Loving his slave so tenderly,
what could he do under the circumstances? He now found the music of
her voice as delicious as the almost angelic beauty of her form and
features, and so charmed was he with the improvement that Komel
evinced, and so did he love to listen to her voice, that he could
even bear to hear her plead for Aphiz, and beseech that he might be
brought to her. Much as this would have been against his own
feelings and wishes, still to have her talk to him he listened
patiently, or seemed to do so, even while she besought him thus.

There was another being whose joy at Komel's recovery of her speech
seemed, if possible, more extravagant even than the Sultan's, and
far more remarkable in manifestation. When the idiot boy first heard
her voice, he started, and crouching like an animal, crept away to a
spot whence he could observe her without himself being seen. By
degrees he drew nearer, and finally received her kind tokens without
any evidences of fear. And by degrees, as she spoke to him and
tutored her words to his simple capacity, he seemed to be filled
with the very ecstasy of joy, and ran and leaped like a hound newly
loosed from confinement. Then he would return, and taking her hand,
place it upon his forehead and temples, and then curling his body
into a ball, lie motionless by her side.

"You love this young Circassian, and would leave me and your present
home for him?" asked the Sultan, as Komel entered the reception
saloon in answer to a summons he had sent to her.

"I do love him, excellency," replied the slave, honestly; "we were
children together, and I cannot remember the time when I loved him
not, for we were always as brother and sister."