Left alone, eager and apprehensive, Sebastian knew not whether to follow or to proceed; while he hesitated, the door of the inner chamber softly opened;--he bent forward--a female figure came forth--she put aside her veil, and shewed him an unknown but engaging countenance, fair, pale, and mildly sad. Past the prime of life, and evidently wasted by sickness, the lady looked like some interesting phantom; she smiled and courteously bowed as she passed slowly to the opposite door, which she bolted, then re-approaching, took him by the hand and led him to the entrance of the other chamber. This unknown European, his incertitude, his grief, his fears, all were forgot, when in the retired chamber to which she pointed, he beheld Kara Aziek alone, unveiled, trembling with love and expectation: he flew forward, he locked her in his arms, he held her to his heart in silence; but that heaving heart, his quick and disturbed breathing, his trembling convulsive grasp, spoke more eloquently than words the extent and the intensity of his joy. The softer and fainter spirit of Aziek seemed to sink under the weight of happiness: she lay on his bosom nearly insensible; her eyes closed, and her feeble hand incapable of returning the frequent pressure of his. At length Sebastian spoke, and the sound of that beloved voice, like some strain of music, suddenly dissolved the spell; a few relieving tears trickled from beneath the eyelids of Aziek. It was but a moment of happiness; those joyful tears which the devoted lover gently kissed away, were soon replaced by mists of fond apprehension: they must part again! their fate was yet darkened by menacing clouds, which might burst in destruction over their hapless heads. In answer to Aziek’s expression of these fears, Sebastian eagerly besought her to say whether she had learned where she was destined to remain in Syria: Aziek informed him that she heard the Basha had given orders for her to follow his camp, which some Syrian merchants at Mecca, had described as being in the interior of Persia; part of which kingdom he had already traversed as a conqueror. “It is in this hurry of war, and triumph of success, that I hope for awhile to be forgotten;” she said, “and perhaps the confusion of such scenes may render escape less difficult: at any rate I trust to this altered person for abating that strange passion of the Basha’s, which a picture (drawn in my days of peace,) had created.--When he sees me, surely--I know not how to explain my meaning, Sebastian--but it is not love he feels for me--and nothing less than love can be satisfied with Aziek as she is now.” She spoke this blushing and looking down; and Sebastian felt such delightful tenderness as he gazed on her, that it was some moments ere he perceived the justice of her suggestion.