As your highness may be aware is the custom, when my brother was executed, all his property was seized by the sultan, and distributed among the favourites. The new capitan pacha who succeeded my brother was called Abdallah, and was said to be an excellent soldier. Part of my brother's property was made over to him, and among the rest the Georgian slave, who had been the ruin of my brother, and had so fatally destroyed my happiness. To show me every attention and respect, the sultan had ordered Abdallah in person to escort me to my own country, with a picked body of cavalry. The cavalcade was magnificent--treasure had been heaped on treasure--present upon present; twenty women of my own country, and numerous slaves had been permitted to attend upon me, and the procession wore the appearance of a pageant. I ascended my litter with an aching heart; and, journeying by easy stages, arrived at the land of my nativity. The borders were passed, and Abdallah requested me to write an acknowledgment that he had done his duty, which the sultan would require of him upon his return. I gave him the paper; and, professing many wishes for my future happiness, he assembled his troops, and the escort turned the heads of their neighing steeds towards the city, where my heart had truly been left behind. It will now be necessary to revert to the Georgian slave, who had been presented to my brother by the sultan, and had afterwards been made over to Abdallah. When she heard that I was about to depart for my own country, loaded with presents, her rage was without bounds. Already had her beauty and talents made great impression upon Abdallah, and she soon won him over to a plot which would be advantageous to him, at the same time that it would throw me, whom he distrusted, into her power. She proposed to Abdallah that, after having escorted me to the frontiers, and received from me the acknowledgment required by the sultan, he should follow my small escort of slaves, cut them to pieces, take possession of me and all my treasure, and return with it to Constantinople, where I might be immured in his harem. The avarice of Abdallah was not able to withstand the temptation; and, aware that there was no chance of the nefarious transaction being discovered by the sultan, he agreed to the proposal. On the second night after we had parted with Abdallah, a body of horsemen galloped down upon us, and all my attendants, male and female, were massacred. I was seized, put into a sack, and thrown across a horse; and as soon as the treasure could be collected, they set off at a rapid pace. I was nearly dead when they halted, and when I was removed from my painful situation I fainted away.