On being brought before the Sultan, the merchant’s son acquitted himself with such modesty and eloquence that he was pardoned, and taken into the sovereign’s service. This was, in truth, an unexpected issue to the dilemma in which he had so unwittingly fallen, and his prospects thus suddenly brightening, he felt more than ever impressed with the idea that he had been spared for a better destiny. He rose rapidly in the royal favour, and was finally advanced to one of the highest offices in the state. One day as he was following the chase with several of the nobles, a boar charged the horse of a prince of the royal house of Ghizny, and having inflicted a frightful wound in its flank, the wounded beast fell, and the foot of its rider being under its body, he could not extricate himself. The enraged boar dashed towards him, and in a few seconds more would have placed him in the same condition as his horse, when Eiz-ood-Deen spurred forward, met the hog in its impetuous career, received it upon his spear, which entered the heart of the furious animal, and it fell dead beside its intended victim. The victor immediately dismounted, and going to the prince’s rescue, released him from his jeopardy. This little incident naturally produced an intimacy, and Eiz-ood-Deen soon became a welcome visitor at the prince’s palace. The latter had three daughters, one of whom was reputed to be a girl of great beauty and accomplishments; nor did she belie the character which report had given her. Her father was justly proud of her. She was already betrothed to one of the wealthiest nobles in the Sultan Ibrahim’s dominions. It had been an arrangement of interest, not of affection, and one in which the princess had acquiesced rather in obedience to the wishes of her father, whom she tenderly loved, than to the suggestions of her own choice. When she met the preserver of her parent’s life immediately after the event just related, the natural impulses of her heart drew from her expressions of gratitude so ardent and earnest, that Eiz-ood-Deen was deeply moved at the eloquent declaration of her feelings. He listened to her with breathless delight. There was no resisting the earnestness which was so much enhanced by the corresponding influence of her beauty. But she was betrothed, and therefore to admire her was dangerous--to love her criminal; and yet to see her, under such a provocative both to admiration and love, and not give way to those strong tendencies of our nature roused into vigorous action, when that pure passion is awakened by which alone the fruits of our earthly paradise are matured, was all but morally impossible. The merchant’s son, now raised to the dignity of a noble, and whose ambition therefore led him to think that he might aspire to the highest alliance, could not behold the beauty of this high-born maiden with insensibility. He soon felt that his heart had received an impression which had completely effaced the scar left upon