At this passionate burst of gratitude, the companion of Benzaide (who had hitherto leaned unnoticed against the dungeon wall) sobbed aloud, and sunk down upon the floor: in strange alarm Sebastian hastened to raise her; Benzaide put aside the slave’s veil to give her air, and the lamp she held, shining directly upon her face, discovered the soft olive-brown complexion and lovely features of Kara Aziek. Sebastian’s excess of pleasure was checked by an instinctive conviction of Kara Aziek’s motive; and now those fervent acknowledgements he would have lavished upon disinterested benevolence, were stifled by an apprehension of heightening a sentiment which he could not return: every animated word he should at this moment address to her, would be treason against Gonsalva. At that thought he hastily dropped the trembling hand he was carrying to his lips, and respectfully resigning her to Benzaide, rose with a dejected air from his kneeling posture. The gentle Moor wept some time in silence; but how expressive was that silence! her eyes spoke every feeling of a fond and pitying heart; as they alternately looked from the dungeon to its noble inhabitant,--to him whose feet were cut, and bleeding still from the sharp rocks he had traversed, and whose countenance, though pale and wasted, was yet bright with unsubdued heroism. “Ah, Fabian!” she exclaimed at length, in a voice that went to the soul, “why didst thou do this rash thing? If I should not be able to save thee?” she stopped at this, unable to conclude the sentence, and the blood forsook her cheeks. Wrung with grief, sick, pale, and languid, Kara Aziek could not have been seen by the man she wished to charm, at a moment more unfavourable for personal beauty; but there is a beauty of the soul, so transcending all mortal perfections, that it triumphs over deformity itself: that beauty now beamed from her tear-dimmed eyes and colourless cheek; it seemed to shed a glory round her, at once awaking love and veneration. Sebastian must have yielded to its sweet force, had not his heart been pledged to another. The agitated expression of the Christian’s countenance, reminded Aziek that she was allowing too much of her own emotion to appear; struggling to conceal it, she proceeded to repeat that he owed her present visit solely to that sincere friendship which his misfortunes and his virtues inspired; a friendship that feared not to shew itself in the form of sympathy and succour. She informed him, that having been taken ill at Mequinez soon after his flight, she must have remained in ignorance of his return and fated punishment, had it not been for Hafiz, who secretly dispatched a message to her, praying her intercession in behalf of his favourite slave: she had then set off for the valley of palms, but arriving too late for an interview with El Hader (who was gone to rest) had ventured to assume a disguise, and pass the prison guards as one of her own servants.