dragged feet foremost from their hiding-places, fighting furiously with teeth and nails, to be overpowered finally, pinned to the floor by a _baltagi’s_ knee, and strangled with the silken cords of the window-curtains. Sultanas returning to their apartments would utter a piercing shriek at sight of the empty cradle, and, turning wildly to interrogate their slaves, read the answer in an ominous silence, which meant, “Go seek your son at the foot of the throne.” Terrified eunuchs would bring word to a favorite, whom the sound of distant tumult had already rendered uneasy, that her head was demanded by the mob, and she must at once prepare for death. The third Selim’s three _kadyns_, condemned to the noose and sack, were aroused one after another in the dead of night and heard each other’s screams, dying in the darkness in the convulsive grasp of the mutes. Vindictive jealousy and bitter revenge filled the kiosks with tragedies and spread terror and dismay throughout the entire harem. The Circassian mother of Mustafa tore Roxalana’s face; rival favorites cuffed and boxed Shekerbuli; Tarkan Sultan beheld the dagger of Muhammad IV. flash above the head of her offspring; the first _kadyn_ of Ahmed I. strangled the slave who dared to be her rival with her own hands, and in her turn fell at the Pâdishah’s feet stabbed in the face and uttering shriek on shriek of rage and pain. Jealous _kadyns_ lay in wait for one another in dark passage-ways, flinging out the insulting words “bought flesh” as they pounced like tigresses and tore their victims’ skin or buried poisoned stilettos in their backs. Who can form any idea of the number of secret unrecorded tragedies?--slaves held in the fountains until they were drowned, struck down by a blow on the temple from a dagger-hilt, beaten to death by the eunuch’s _colbac_, or crushed in the deadly embrace and arms of steel of a dozen jealous furies. Veils choke the cries of the dying, flowers cover up the blood-stains, and two dusky figures, moving down the dimly-lighted path, carry a sinister something between them. The sentinels pacing up and down upon the battlements which overlook the Sea of Marmora are startled for a moment by the sound of a heavy splash; then all is still, and the dawn, awakening the harem to another day of laughter and pleasure, whispers no tales of that one among its thousand rooms found empty.