and gentle as the west wind, or the memory of a love we have lost when young.'

In ten minutes afterwards this coolest, queerest, and most cunning of all Yuze Bashis, had poised his huge bulk on the saddle of a fleet horse. With many sore misgivings, and terrors of the Seraskier and the Kiaja Kiatibi, he took his departure for Stamboul, leaving me in full possession of the fortress, and, more than all, of his wife, about whom, although I had not seen her, I felt some curiosity as he had acknowledged her to be young and beautiful as a Houri.

The plot of my Greek adventures was thickening!

In love with the wife of one Turk, and solemnly requested, in a fatherly way of course, to look after the rib of another!' says Jack Belton, in one of his letters, which I received about this time by the hand of a mounted Koord. 'An arduous duty for a subaltern, Allan, but beware of meddling with such matters in Turkey! If the Horse Guards make light of dangers risked in the field of Mars, they will make lighter still of those encountered in the field of Venus. Allons, my boy! on the 11th February, Fort Alexander at Sebastopol was blown up and entirely destroyed. There is no word of our moving in that direction yet, though it is said that a costermonger's ass would not exchange duties with our poor fellows in the trenches. I send you a box of prime cheroots; the last month's "Army List," the last Scotch newspaper, Punch," and the corkscrew you required so much, and wishing you safe back again with your pins under the mess mahogany, remain, ever yours, " J. BELTON,

66

"Heraclea, March 1856.'

CHAPTER XLII.

TWO CHARMING EYES.

Ir Hussein imagined that Callum Dhu and I were to watch his premises, and to guard the bower of his lady-love, even in the slender way that he watched those of the Cole-agassi Mohammed Saïd, he was very much mistaken; for, beyond an extra injunction to the sentinel at the gate to admit no man into the little fortress without my express permission I troubled myself no more about the matter; but this order would have proved no bar to an enterprising Turkish lover, or an intriguing Turkish wife, as the apartments of the Yuze Bashi had windows and a private door, which opened into a beautiful rose-garden without the walls; and the stockades, which once formed a barrier in that direction had all been sold long since by the avaricious Hussein for firewood.

The evening of the day after his departure was drawing near when I bethought me of my Unknown Beauty at the Ruined Hermitage, and before bending my steps in that direction, I lingered on the beach for a time, below the castle-wall, in the hope that she might pass that way.

The town was hidden by the weather-beaten masses of the old castle, the round towers of which had for ages formed a landmark to the sea. Reddened under the western sun, the ocean seemed on fire towards its verge, and the clouds were piled over each other, like mountains of burnished brass, or gold and flame, but ever crumbling, changing, and forming anew, as they rolled along the horizon, in all the splendour of an oriental sunset. A gorgeous orange tint was spreading over everything; the distant capes and headlands, isles, and rocks, were all tinged with amber

and violet hue or fiery red; and mirrored in that shining sea which blended into yellow and crimson as its waves rolled away towards the marble island of Marinora.

Among the rocks on which this strong old castle of the Grecians stood, the dwarf oak, the flowering arbutus, the broad-leaved bay, the fragrant myrtle, the spini Christi of the gallant Crusaders, the fig, the olive, the golden orange, and the luscious pomegranate, with its brown and husky bulbs, were all growing in luxuriance; while over all some giant planetrees-which, by a marvel, had escaped the cupidity of Hussein, though their stems were seven feet thick -spread their shady branches. The castled promontory was a place of groves, of flowers, and of perfume.

Lingering there, and thinking, almost with a sigh, that such a land was worthy of a better race, there fell something at my feet.

to my

It was three rose-buds-the faded three I had given veiled fair one a few nights ago! I started and looked up, just as the white hand that had dropped them was withdrawn from a casement in the old castle-wall close by, and not ten feet from where I was sitting, and where I had been musing for an hour past with Strabo and Herodotus and their old memories, conflicting in my mind, with the recollection of her magnificent eyes, when I found them beaming upon me!

She was still muffled in her yashmack and feradjee, yet I knew her in a moment.

'Iola!' I exclaimed; you here?'

Here, where I first saw you,' said she, smiling, and waving a kiss towards me in the prettiest little flirting way imaginable.

'What are you then-'

"The lady of whom you have such solemn charge.' The wife of the Yuze Bashi?'

"The wife of Hussein Ebn al Ajuz,' she added, with a gleam in her black eyes.

His prisoner, rather, poor Iola! what have you to live for?'

'Those who love me-for them I live, and for them only. I am your prisoner at present, for Hussein has gone to Stamboul with terror in every hair of his beard.'

Ah, Iola, you are worthy of a brighter and a better sphere than your husband can ever assign you. There are some things I wish you could understand; but the Mohammedan can form no conception of the position assigned to your sex among the Franks of the western world, where the influence of Christianity and of chivalry have served to exalt and purify the character of woman.'

I do know all this,' she answered, impetuously, 'for I am come of Albanian blood, and love the Christians, though they bow their heads and bend their knees before gilded idols and painted pictures; for among our mountains the Mussulmen cling to the memory of their Christian fathers, and, on certain days, say a prayer at the old stone crosses that mark where they lie. Moreover, I have been taught that it was the place assigned to Mary, the first Christian woman, that gave a nobility and purity to the women of Frangistan. I know this, for I am a Greek by birth, though a Mohammedan by faith; and, oh, blessed be the Moolah Moustapha, he who revealed unto me the divine teachings of the Koran. Yet,' she added, with tears, and in a tremulous voice, 'I can remember my dear, dear mother, teaching me to kiss the little cross of the Christian's triple God!'

I winced a little at this peculiar phrase.

'Your mother-you remember her, then?'

Oh, yes yes! tall, beautiful, pale, and sad!' she added, throwing her white hands and dark eyes up

wards; her blood-her hot blood-came over me as she died!'

Iola! her blood-then she was killed?'

'Murdered-she was barbarously murdered before my eyes-for she was a Greek, and the wife of the gallant Demetrius Vidimo.'

'Good heavens-what is this you tell me?' 'The truth,' she added, weeping;

the terrible truth-you have heard of my father, then?'

And you are-'

Iola Vidimo.'

The sister of Constantine-'

Oh, Mohammed! how know you that?' I had a brother-a dear little brother, so named. Can you tell me aught of him? Speak-speak-have you lost your tongue?'

I had much to tell her, but how was I to fashion the tidings that her brother had been shot in the pre'sence of her husband; and that he-Hussein-was one of those brutal soldiers who, after a vain contention for the person of her mother, had so barbarously pistolled her!

'Do you know this coral cross, Iola?'

She uttered a cry.

'It was my beloved mother's, and on that awful day at Acre, sixteen years ago, she tied it round the neck of my boy-brother, when we were separated. Tell me about Constantine-does he live?'

It is a long story, Iola, and one that cannot be related here; but you forget yourself-you are excited your voice may be overheard, and I may be seen. Where can we meet-at-the Her

mitage?' 'No.'

• Where?'

Here.'

'Here?'

In these apartments.