The sword hissed fiercely through the vacant air, and the next moment the voice replied from a respectable distance: "It has happened already." "This is a dream, all a dream!" moaned Ali. "'Tis no dream; thou art wide awake," cried the mysterious voice. "If it be no dream, give me a sign that I may know before I depart hence that I have not been dreaming." "First put thy sword into its sheath." "I have done so," said Ali; but he lied, for he had only slipped it into his girdle. "Into the sheath, I say," cried the voice. It was with a tremor that Ali felt that this being could distinguish his slightest movement in the dark. "And now stretch forth thy hand!" cried the voice. It was now quite close to him. Ali stretched forth his hand, and the same instant he felt a vigorous, manly hand seize his own in a grasp of steel; so strong, so cruel was the pressure that the blood started from the tips of his fingers. At last the invisible being let go, and said in a whisper as it did so: "Not a muscle of thy face moved under the pressure of my hand; only Tepelenti could so have endured." "And there is but one man living who could press my hand like that," replied Ali. "His name was Behram, the son of Halil Patrona,[3] who, forty years ago, was my companion in warfare, and has since disappeared. Who art thou?" [Footnote 3: The extraordinary adventures of this Mussulman reformer are recorded in another of Jókai's Turkish stories, _A feher rózsa_ (_The White Rose_).] "Aleikum unallah!"[4] said the voice, instead of replying. [Footnote 4: "God be with thee!"] "Who art thou?" again cried Ali, advancing a step. "Aleikum unallah!" was the parting salutation of the already far-distant voice. The mighty pasha turned back in a reverie, and when he got back into the moonlight, he still saw plainly on his hand the drops of blood which that powerful grasp had caused to leap forth from the tips of his fingers. CHAPTER II EMINAH And now for a story, a marvellous story, that would not be out of place in a fairy tale! Away to another clime where the very sunbeams and blossoms, where the very beating of loving hearts, differ from what we are accustomed to. * * * * *