according to the prince’s commands.” Hereupon her veil was rolled back. In the quiet majesty of her loveliness, Bertha von Lichtenried looked on the astonished emir, fixing on him her large blue eyes, shadowed by their dark frowning brows. Her smooth brown hair was parted on the forehead; quiet and collected she stood there, not indeed overpowering by her charms at first sight, but every moment entwining round the heart, bonds of chaste and respectful admiration. For a long space they were both silent, the damsel, in the consciousness of her own virtuous dignity, and the emir in self-humiliation, because he now found that his usual pride and dictatorial spirit were overcome. “Noblest of damsels,” said he at length, “wherefore have you spoken of a prince or his commands, as if violence and constraint would here be laid upon you? I trust indeed, that no one has ever been so insolent as to force you to aught that was contrary to your own wishes, at least not in my name. That Moor, who now stands by the door, happened to overhear what I once said; namely, that I would give the third part of my worldly fortune to any one who would bring you hither, beautiful and innocent as you had been left by the Prince Mutza. But, by Heaven, your honour and dignity are dear to me, even more than my own; and I trust you have been induced to cross the seas, not by violence, but by eloquent and ingenious persuasions, or by the sweet spells that animate our Moorish love-songs.” “I know not,” said Bertha, “what thou meanest by persuasions or love-songs; but your ambassador there, with his blackamoor band, forced me away from the blessed image of the cross on the shore of Gascony, to which I had clung for protection. The black slave who is here present was my servant, and betrayed me into his power.” “So then!”--answered the emir, while his brows contracted, and every limb seemed quivering with rage, walking straightway towards a corner of the hall, where all sorts of weapons were hung in readiness. “Prince,” cried Alhafiz, his voice trembling with fear, “have I not brought to you the damsel, safe and sound in her beauty and innocence, as she was left by the Prince Mutza?” “How darest thou say that she has been brought hither safe and sound?” said the emir in a voice of thunder; “and could’st thou look upon a form so angelic as this, and yet think of using violence? But be silent, wretches, in her honoured presence, and ere long you shall be silenced for ever.” With these words he had drawn out two sharp javelins from among the trophies on the wall, and in a moment he had hurled them severally at Alhafiz and the black woman with such frightful certainty of aim, that, ere the eye could trace the weapons in their flight, his two victims were struck to the heart, and fell to the ground almost without even one shriek of anguish.