Nightly we conversed in whispers, and had our interchange of love-letters; not that poor Basilia wrote, or that I then could write; alas, no! Our letters were simply flowers, tied together with a ribband, and in this symbolical language we conferred. It is a language lovers easily learn, and the Circassian sooner than all. I ransacked the bazaars of the Armenians and Muscovites for gaudy trinkets and perfumes, as presents for Basilia; and fearless of the Russ, I daily caracoled my horse--my Zupi--before her father's house, that she might see me attired in the glittering arms and splendid costume of a Circassian cavalier; and happy was I--oh, how happy! if but once I saw the muslin-veiled form of my beautiful Basilia. At her feet I laid the shawls of Cashmere and the beads of Bokhara. She gave me a waist-belt embroidered by herself, and a morocco breast-pocket to hold my cartridges, in return. Summoning up courage, I one day put on my most splendid habiliments; my coat of mail, which shone like water in the sun; a helmet of steel, damascened by my own hands; and I armed myself with weapons which, like every Tcherkesse warrior, I had tempered and ornamented with silver and precious stones, all by my own skill. Bathed, perfumed, and anointed, I rode up to the door of Abdallah ibn Obba; and while my heart trembled and died away within me, and my colour came and went like that of a woman under the bowstring, I asked his daughter in marriage. He heard me in ominous silence. "May God be with thee, Abdallah," said I. "With thee be God," said he, and paused again, on which I timidly rehearsed all I had said. The old merchant, who was seated on a rich carpet, with his legs folded under him, and a split reed, ink-horn, and piles of papers and accounts on one side of him, and his fragrant narguillah on the other, heard me without moving a muscle of his solemn visage; and after smoking for some time, drew the yellow mouthpiece from his mustachioed lips, and shaking his bushy beard, replied to me, slowly,-- "May you be saluted, O Osman Rioni! No--no, Osman, this cannot be! The son of a prince weds a prince's daughter, even as a slave weds the daughter of a slave. Thus, the rich give their children in marriage only to the rich, and thou, Osman, art very poor. Remember, that this daughter may yet be a mine of wealth to me." I knew what the old wretch meant by these words--the market of Stamboul--and my blood ran cold.