He lost no time in repairing to the house of Rebecca. She was still unmarried, and again he made his proposals; this time it was with more success. He had all the appearance of a man of high consideration; and the riches which he half-negligently displayed, took their due effect. He had enjoyed a good character when he lived at Tunis before, and they took it for granted that he had done nothing to forfeit it. They asked no questions how his riches had been obtained, but gave him Rebecca in marriage. At the end of six months, the French Consul received inquiries from Algiers about Ibrahim; his wife, it was said, had become alarmed at his prolonged absence. The Consul sent for Ibrahim, and told him what he had heard. Ibrahim at first appeared disturbed and afterwards indignant. He denied in the strongest terms that he had any other wife than Rebecca, but owned that the woman in question had fallen in love with him. He also denied that he had given her any sort of legal claim upon him. The French Consul was perplexed; Ibrahim’s papers were all regular, he had always led an exemplary life in Tunis, he denied his marriage, and there was no proof of it. Had Ibrahim retained the smallest presence of mind, no harm could have befallen him. In that land of polygamy, his two wives (even though one were European) would have caused little scandal. His domestic position was somewhat complicated but by no means desperate. On departing from the Consul’s house, however, he would seem to have become possessed by a strange panic not to be explained by any rules of logic, and to have gone mad straightway. His one idea was that he was hurried on by destiny to—murder Rebecca! This miserable wretch, possessed by the fixed idea of destroying Rebecca, made deliberate preparations for carrying it into effect. But with the strange fanaticism and superstition which formed a main part of his character, and which forms a part of many such characters in those countries, he determined to give her a chance for her life; for, he seems to have thought in some confused, wild, mad, vain way, that it might still be the will of Providence that she should live. He concerted measures with the captain of a Greek vessel, whom he induced by heavy bribes to enter into his views. He gave it out that he was going to Algiers, to put an end to the ridiculous report which had been raised, and to destroy the claim which had been set up by his pretended wife.