"Hah!" cried the sheik, with wild delight, "I have got back one of my children, at any rate." But how amazed was he when he saw Milieva, instead of running to him or even remaining in the road, cry out in terror to her brother and raise her arms towards him, and Thomar, never expecting to save her, bent down from his horse, and grasping his sister round the waist with a swift hand, placed her in the saddle in front of him, casting a wild look behind him, and then galloping on farther. Kasi Mollah suddenly reined in his flying horse and stopped short, allowing them to escape. Not a step farther did he pursue them. By the time his comrades had joined him the Greek was well on the other side of the bridge, and they could all see Thomar helping the merchant to cast it down. Two burning tear-drops stood in Kasi Mollah's eyes. They really burned, and he felt the pain. And yet--and yet, when the two children sat in the saddle again, Milieva extended her hands towards her father as if in most ardent supplication. What was the meaning of it? The good Greek shortly afterwards arrived safely in Smyrna with the children, and had them taught singing, riding, and how to walk about in nice clothes, and some years after he sold them to the Seraglio of the Grand Vizier for two thousand sequins. And all that he had said at random to the children during the journey, to cheer their spirits, actually came to pass, as we shall presently see. When Sultan Mahmoud lost his favorite damsel so strangely, Milieva was brought into the Seraglio instead. The girl was then about fourteen years old. The Circassian girls at that age are fully mature, and the bloom of their beauty is at its prime. Milieva, from the very first day when she entered the harem, became the Sultan's favorite damsel. Thomar joined the ranks of the ichoglanler, a band of youths who are brought up in the outer court and form the Sultan's body-guard. It was in this year that Mahmoud instituted the Akinji corps, selecting its members from amongst the Janissaries, and formed them into a small regular army. Thomar very soon won for himself the command of a company, and continued to rise higher and higher till at length he reached the eminence which the merchant had foretold to him; and when the course of time brought with it the day on which he was to see Kasi Mollah again, he had become Derbend Aga, one of the Sultan's very highest officials, and his name was mentioned respectfully by all true believers. And in the village of Himri his name was also mentioned. Kasi Mollah often heard it attached to the title of "bey," and Thomar also heard a good deal of the village of Himri and of Kasi Mollah, for they now called his father "murshid," and the name "murshid" is full of mournful recollections for both Moscow and Petersburg. But of all these things we shall know more at another time. CHAPTER X THE AVENGER