No doubt the renegade had told of my departure, and they had seen the frigate sailing away, for I saw the slaves, rush suddenly down the bank, and over the lawn, and assemble on the beach, where they stretched out their arms towards the frigate in attitudes of despair. Then, seeing that the ship was going farther and farther away, Noémi tore off her fez in a rage, threw it on the ground, and stamped on it with both feet; soon her thick black hair was flying in the wind. She looked like a beautiful fury. Daphné, who perhaps had not yet given up all hope, waved her silken scarf by way of a signal. Anathasia, the blonde, was kneeling on the beach. Soon I beheld Du Pluvier, very much at his ease in my Albanian costume, rush down to the beach, followed by the old Cypriote and the two dwarfs, who were indulging in a thousand capers. Doubtless the new sultan was inviting his odalisks to return to their seraglio. But unfortunately the odalisks were not very obedient, and the sultan was not very persuasive, for after some exchange of words, with the old Cypriote as an interpreter, all the women fell like so many furies on Du Pluvier, who was lost to sight amid their raised and threatening arms. I never saw the end of this entertaining sight, for the vessel rounded a promontory which completely hid the palace from our sight. Half an hour afterwards the captain said to me: "I would like to know the meaning of that thick smoke that is going up from the upper part of Khios, in the direction of the villa you lived in." Noémi's threat to burn the palace if I abandoned her flashed through my mind. Had these furious maidens carried her project to its execution? What had become of Du Pluvier? Had he perished in the flames entwined in the arms of his slaves? I could not answer the question, and we very soon were out of sight of the island, and in a terrible state of anxiety as to the fate of poor Du Pluvier. THE PRINCESSE DE FERSEN CHAPTER XII THE ALEXINA Such were the impressions left upon me by a year's sojourn in the island of Khios, such the motives of my abrupt departure for France on board the Russian frigate _Alexina._ Having introduced in its proper place this fragment of my journal of former days, I resume my narrative. I find myself in a state of mind eminently suitable to take up this narrative and follow up the incidents, be they gay or sad, pathetic or tragic. The last and violent emotions that I have felt since my journey to the East, up to this moment when I am writing these lines, have so worn out my heart, I find myself so indifferent to the future and the past, that I can relate this new episode of my life with the most profound detachment, as if it in no way concerned me. The reading of these pages, dated from the island of Khios, and written in the East three years ago, has still further increased my indifference to all that relates to myself.