Proud in the empire she exercised over her master, Baïla became intoxicated in the triumph of her vanity. In the midst of its smoke, the remembrance of the stranger, the giaour, no longer reached her but at distant intervals. She had remained shut up for a whole week without descending into the gardens, when one day that Djezzar had gone to raise some taxes, resuming her old promenades, she found herself unconsciously near the Azalea of Pontus. What had become of that young Frank? Was he still in the pachalick of Shivas? Did he still entertain the plan of a second attempt, as Mariam had thought he would? He had doubtless gone, returned to his country, that singular country called France, where they say the women rule the men; she should see him no more. So much the better for both him and her. Whilst she was in this train of reflection a roar of Haïder was heard without; it announced the return of the pacha. The latter had taken him with him, for the pleasure of letting him loose at some jackall by the way. She was preparing to return to her apartments to await there the arrival of Djezzar, when a report of fire-arms, followed by a low noise, was heard by the side of Red River. Baïla trembled without being able to explain the cause of her emotion. “Have you been successful in hunting?” she said to Djezzar, when they were alone. “So, so,” he replied; “my falcon struck three pheasants, and I killed a _dog_.” Baïla dared not interrogate him as to the doubtful sense which this word might have in the mouth of so orthodox a Mussulman as Ali-ben-Ali. That evening, when Mariam came to her mistress, after hesitating as to the information she was about to give her, and after ten preparatory exclamations, she informed her of the event of the day. As the pacha was returning to his palace, and his hunting train was straggling along by the woods of Kizil-Ermak, near the place where they entered the second enclosure, Haïder, whom a slave held by a leash, stopped obstinately before a copse, growling in low tones, which attracted the attention of Djezzar. The copse having been beaten by the train, a man sprung out from it, flying rapidly toward the river, across which he endeavored to swim, but before he could reach the opposite bank, the pacha, snatching a gun from the hand of one of his delhis, had drawn on the flyer with such certainty of eye and hand, that, struck in the head, he had disappeared immediately, carried down by the current. This man was a Christian, but an Asiatic Christian, as his head-dress of blue muslin proved. Besides, the pacha said that the roar of Haïder of itself showed what his religion was. “Be his country or religion what they may,” said Mariam, finishing her story, “he is dead, dead without any one being enabled to divine what motive could have induced him to secrete himself on this side of the river by the very verge of the palace.”