us; but under pain of his everlasting curse and displeasure, commanded them to spare our lives, “as he had eaten bread and salt with us." Though four of the fellows whom we encountered, and with whom we had exchanged several buffets, blows, and stabs in the dark, belonged to the unscrupulous force of the Bostandgi Bashi, or Police Inspector on the banks of the Bosphorus and its adjacent villages, the voice of the Moolah, who ordered us to be taken alive, proved all powerful. We were soon beaten down, and severely, roughly, even brutally, tied like sheep with a wet rope which lay steeping in the bilge at the bottom of the boat; and while we were lying helplessly there, the revengeful Osmanlies trampled and spat upon us, reviling us at the same time with such epithets as can only come from a vituperative Turkish tongue.

Allah burn you, you dog's sons-you imps of Shaitaun!' said one whom they frequently named Zahroun, and who seemed to be half Bostandgi and half seaman.

The drunken Ingleez-whose dogs are they?' asked another, mockingly.

6

They worship the devil, like the wild Yezidies of Iraun-the children of hell, and are false as the falsest Yahoudi. Dirt be upon their beards!' said the ferocious Zahroun.

Son of Shaitaun,' said another, kicking me so severely that I thought my right arm was broken, 'it is your khismet (destiny) to die here, and I know not why the simple Moolah spares you.'

'Infidel that you are,' said a fourth,' your khismet is written on your forehead by the finger of the prophet-and it is a skinful of the cold Bosphorus.'

To all this, the others added coarse and vulgar ribaldry, such as one might expect from the boatmen and Bostandgi of the Bosphorus, a depraved and murderous class at all times; and my heart swelled with honest rage when I thought of the futile war we had

waged for those insensate Turks, whose name had not been heard in battle since our army landed in the Crimea, and who, with all their boasted valour, had fled at Balaclava, and left a single Highland regiment -“the thin red streak," of Sir Colin Campbell-to receive in line the charge of all the Russian cavalry! But now the Moolah raised his voice.

'Bismillah-peace, I command you, peace! Allah permits them yet to live, and dare such as ye to repine? We come not here to brawl or to revile, but to fulfil the decrees of Allah as spoken by his prophet, upon whose memory, name, and grave be all the blessings of the faithful. The home of a true Believer -the anderun of a true Mussulman-one fearing God, obeying his Koran, and walking in the shadow of the prophet, has been violated, and the Koran and the law say, that a terrible punishment must follow!' 'Amaun! amaun!' muttered Zahroun and all the others present, while a moan from the stern of the boat drew my eyes towards Iola.

Would that I could blot from my memory the dreadful scene that followed!

Worn by nights and days of weeping-exhausted by unavailing prayers for pity, and paralyzed by terror, there seemed to be no life left in her slender and delicate form, save what a short, quick, and heavy sob indicated, as her small and tremulous hands were tied by a cord behind her back; and, calm and pale as death itself, she submitted to her fate without a murmur.

6

you

'Moustapha-insensate Moolah!' I exclaimed, in an agony of mind, hear me-hear me! Have no pity? -no mercy ? -no compassion for those who have been cruelly tempted?'

'Peace, accursed,' replied the Moolah, in a stern whisper, we tempt ourselves.'

6

As a degradation, the executioners had toru away

the yashmack of muslin from her face, and its pale beauty and divine resignation were sad, sublime, and maddening to me; but a large, coarse sack was hastily drawn over her by Zahroun, who seemed an adept in the work; he tied it securely to her slender ankles, and saw her form no more.

A cry escaped me, and a half-suppressed groan from Callum Dhu, as these inhuman wretches launched her headlong into the deep.

On the black waves of that midnight sea there rose a few bubbles, and a ripple or two, that widened round us, and then all was over! A voice broke the stillness; it was that of the Moolah praying. He was repeating the first chapter of the Koran; a short chapter held in great veneration by the Mohammedans, who use it as a prayer, and deem it the quintessence of the whole writings of the Prophet.

Allah latif magid!' (Allah is gracious!) he exclaimed, with a loud voice; the Lord of all creatures -the most merciful-the King of the day of judgment! Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way-in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious-not of those against whom Thou art incensed and who go astray.'

'Amaun! amaun!' muttered all the ruffians, bowing their heads, as they shipped their oars again, and now the huge and lumbering kochamba was slowly pulled away from the place; from that hideous grave -the inky waters that had swallowed up Iola Vidimo,

In the morning I was beloved by a beautiful woman-at night by an immortal but scarcely purer spirit; and with eyes full of tears for her who had passed away, I gazed upward on the starlit sky of Greece.

The passages of that night seemed all a hideous and incredible dream.

Iola was the most artless of all earthly beings, for in many things she was a mere child, and can aught be nearer angels, or more akin to heaven, than a child? But so perished this unhappy one; so pure, so unstained and beautiful-the victim of a pitiless destiny!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE TURKISH BOAT.

OUR craft had been for some time in motion before I became aware that a large lateen sail was hoisted on it, and was filled to the extremity of its long and tapering yard; and that our course was directed, not to Rodosdchig, but up the sea of Marmora, towards the north-east.

I demanded of the Moolah Moustapha whither he was conveying us, but received no answer. Again and again I made the same request, each time with growing anger and vehemence, and each time adding threats of what our Government would say, or do, or require, curiously oblivious that I had, in my own person, outraged the civil and religious laws of Turkey, such as they are; but still the Moolah disdained to accord me the slightest answer or recognition, and sat, with his hands folded in his green robe and crossed upon his breast; his high felt cap pulled over his beetling brows; his keen and glittering eyes fixed upon the eastern quarter of the sky, where the dawn was shedding a rosy tinge over all the land and sea; and the rough galiondgis or boatmen, and the pistolled, sabred, tarbooshed, and bearded policemen of the Bostandgi Bashi were equally taciturn, though Zahroun scowled and swore at us from time to time. Now I conceived that they might be conveying us

to one of the old castles at the mouth of the Bosphorus, or perhaps to Constantinople, but the distance was rather too great to be traversed in an open boat at the season of the year.

Day dawned at last; morning brightened on the Grecian hills, and the outline of many a grim old tower and ruined temple, crowning the grey rocks and storm-beaten headlands, stood in dark relief against the blushing east.

Upon that sea, which mirrored all the morning sky, I gazed with a shudder of horror, for it was the grave of my poor Albanian girl, and her pale, wan face, her beautiful eyes, and angelic smile, came before me with painful distinctness; while, with a morbid grief, I endeavoured to imagine on what coral bed, in what deep and unfathomable rift or abyss of that huge watery tomb, on which the waves were shining in the orient sun, her charming form had found a last resting place.

Poor Iola! I could not yet realize her death, or the conviction that if I was to go back to Rodosdchig I would not meet her at the Ruined Hermitage, in the cypress cemetery, or in the silken-hung apartments of Hussein, where I had last spent an evening with her. The events of the last night still seemed all a hideous nightmare, or the memory of some terrible phantasmagoria.

'It is long before we become assured of the loss of those we value,' says a charming female writer; so her dying glance was still lingering before me, and shall be so, in years to come, when other memories may have been swept away and effaced, like footprints on the shore of an ebbing sea.

With emotions of rage and hatred, difficult alike to express and to control, I turned from her destroyers, and hid my face in my hands, as this bitterness was replaced by anguish and remorse.

The kochamba continued to run at great speed