completion will require, on her part, great anxiety of mind, greater
exertion of body, danger, fatigue, privation. Is the Lady Iduna
prepared for all this endurance, and all this hazard?"

"Noble friend," replied Iduna, "for I cannot deem you a stranger, and
none but a most chivalric knight could have entered upon this almost
forlorn adventure; you have not, I trust, miscalculated my character.
I am a slave, and unless heaven will interpose, must soon be a
dishonoured one. My freedom and my fame are alike at stake. There is
no danger, and no suffering which I will not gladly welcome, provided
there be even a remote chance of regaining my liberty and securing my
honour."

"You are in the mind I counted on. Now, mark my words, dear lady.
Seize an opportunity this evening of expressing to your gaolers that
you have already experienced some benefit from my visit, and announce
your rising confidence in my skill. In the meantime I will make such a
report that our daily meetings will not be difficult. For the present,
farewell. The Prince Mahomed waits without, and I would exchange some
words with him before I go."

"And must we part without my being acquainted with the generous friends
to whom I am indebted for an act of devotion which almost reconciles me
to my sad fate?" said Iduna. "You will not, perhaps, deem the implicit
trust reposed in you by one whom you have no interest to deceive, and
who, if deceived, cannot be placed in a worse position than she at
present fills, as a very gratifying mark of confidence, yet that trust
is reposed in you; and let me, at least, soothe the galling dreariness
of my solitary hours, by the recollection of the friends to whom I am
indebted for a deed of friendship which has filled me with a feeling of