But lo! it is as if the night grew brighter; a sort of errant light glides along the walls and a gleam of sunshine breaks unexpectedly through the open door of the room. The pasha looked in that direction with amazement. Who could his visitor be at that hour? Who is coming to drive the phantoms of darkness from his room and from his heart? A pale female form, with a smile upon her face and tears in her eyes, appears before him. She comes right up to the spot where Tepelenti is sitting on the ground. She places her torch in an iron sconce in the wall and stands there before the pasha. Ali looked at her sadly. He fancied that this also was only a dream shape, only one of those apparitions created by a fevered mind, like those which walked beside him headless and bloody. It was Eminah, at whose word the devastating tempest had been unchained against the mightiest of despots. Tepelenti believed neither his eyes nor his heart when he saw her thus before him. The damsel took the old man by the hand and called him by his name, and even now the pasha believed that the warmth of that hand and the sweetness of that voice were only part of a dream. "Wherefore hast thou come?" he inquired in a whisper, or perchance he did not ask but only dreamed that he asked. Yet the gracious, childlike damsel was sitting there at his feet as at other times, and she had pillowed his gray head upon her breast and covered his face with the tent of her long tresses, as she had done long, long ago in the happy times that were gone. Oh, how sweet it would be to still live! "Oh, Ali Tepelenti, let go the hand of Death from thy hand and grasp my hand instead! See how warm it is! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, rise up from among these barrels of gunpowder, and rather lay thy head upon my breast; hearken how it beats! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, ask mercy from the Sultan! See, now how lovely life is!" Only at these words did Ali recover himself. His enemies had sought out this woman, the only being that he loved, and sent her to him to soothe away the rage of his soul and soften his heart with her caresses. Oh, how well they understood his heart! "Kurshid Pasha swore to me that he would obtain the Sultan's favor for thee," said Eminah, in a tone of conviction. "He wrote a letter under his seal that thou shouldst never die beneath the hands of the executioner; that thy death should not be a violent one, unless it were in an honorable duel or on the field of battle. Behold, here is the letter!" If at that moment Ali had listened to his heart, he must have extended the hand of submission without any letter of amnesty, but, like an escutcheon above a crown, pride was perched higher than his heart and spurned the offer. "Allah may humble Ali, but Ali will never humble himself." "Then thou wilt not live with me?" asked Eminah, fixing her piteously entreating eyes upon her husband. Ali shook his head in silence. "Then I will die with thee!" cried the damsel, with a determined voice.