The eagerness and astonishment of his countenance as he hastily bent forward and attempted to catch the arm of Zaphna, alarmed the object of his scrutiny; Zaphna’s heart died within him, he was on the point of sinking to the earth with grief and shame, when desperately rousing himself, he sprung past the Prince and gained the hall of the Kiosk. Abbas’s first impulse was to follow; but recalling his scattered senses, and resolving not to accuse Sebastian till convinced beyond all sophistry to disprove, he tore himself from the scene, and ran with a madman’s haste to the abode of Maimuna. He questioned her slaves and her women--he insisted upon being admitted to her presence--of conversing with her, at least a moment, from her window; he was told that Maimuna was sick and she could see no one. At this information Abbas’s jealous suspicion increased to madness; he commanded her favorite maid to be left alone with him, and giving the reins to his natural violence of character, enjoined her to say on her life whether her mistress were not with the foreign knight, disguised as a boy. His high authority, his imperious tone, and above all, the fear of his vengeance, terrified the poor servant, she fell at his feet, confessing the truth of his supposition; but of her mistress’s motives for such imprudent conduct she was totally ignorant. At this confirmation of his worst apprehension, fully as he had expected to receive it, Abbas lost all consciousness, and for a moment his limbs failed under him: it was but a moment of weakness; the anguish of a virtuous passion blighted in its fondest hope, yielded to the phrenzy of resentment: again the burning blood rushed to his cheek, again lightning darted from his eyes, and thunder spoke in his voice. “Stir not hence on your peril!” he exclaimed, “I go to unmask that hypocrite who has betrayed Maimuna; guilty as she is, I will save her if possible.” He broke away as he concluded, and taking the road to the Kiosk, was arrested by a woman meanly attired, who bending the knee to him, intreated him to listen to her for an instant--“I cannot stay, woman!--another time--carry your petition to the Sophi,--another time!” The petitioner laid hold of his robe--“For the love of Ispahan, hear me great Prince!--I have something strange to tell--treason and that foreign knight.” At these words Abbas was spell-bound--“What of that pernicious wretch!” he exclaimed incautiously. The tone in which he spoke encouraged the woman, and beckoning to a grove of trees that surrounded a fountain, he followed her there impatiently. The short detail he then listened to set the seal to Sebastian’s fate. This woman, the wife of one of Sir Anthony Shirley’s Italians, had been weakly entrusted by her husband with their projected enterprize: terrified for her husband’s safety, which so hazardous a plan endangered, she took the resolution of disclosing all to Prince Abbas.