dead also; it was he who gave her this beautiful gold betel-box.

"But how is it that you are still a slave?" I asked.

"I am old and ugly and childless: and therefore, to be trusted by my
dead lord's son, the beneficent prince, upon whose head be
blessings,"--clasping her withered hands, and turning toward that part
of the palace where, no doubt, he was enjoying a "beneficent" nap.

"And now it is my privilege to watch and guard these favored ones, that
they see no man but their lord."

The repulsive uncomeliness of this woman had been wrought by oppression
out of that which must have been beautiful once; for the spirit of
beauty came back to her for a moment, with the passing memories that
brought her long-lost treasures with them. In the brutal tragedy of a
slave's experience,--a female slave in the harem of an Asian
despot,--the native angel in her had been bruised, mutilated, defaced,
deformed, but not quite obliterated.

Her story ended, the younger women, to whom her language had been
strange, could no longer suppress their merriment, nor preserve the
decorum due to her age and authority. Again they swarmed about me like
bees, plying me pertinaciously with questions, as to my age, husband,
children, country, customs, possessions; and presently crowned the
inquisitorial performance by asking, in all seriousness, if I should not
like to be the wife of the prince, their lord, rather than of the
terrible Chow-che-witt. [Footnote: Chow-che-witt,--"Prince of
life,"--the supreme king.]