The story told by the Hadji referred to a piece of court scandal, which, had he related it somewhere nearer the Golden Horn, might have cost him his head; and to me it became chiefly remarkable from the circumstance that, soon after the Crimean War, a portion of it actually found its way as news from the East into the London papers; but all who heard it in the khan listened with eyes dilated and mouth agape, for it was replete with that treachery and lust of cruelty which are so peculiarly oriental. After extolling in flowing and exaggerated terms the beauty of Djemila Sultana, whom he called the third and youngest daughter of the Sultan Abdul Medjid, the Hadji told us that he had been present when she was bestowed in marriage upon Mahmoud Jel-al-adeen Pasha, to whom, notwithstanding the charms of this royal lady, the possession of her hand was anything but enviable, as oriental princesses usually treat worse than slaves their husbands, leading them most wretched lives, in consequence of their tyrannical spirit, their caprice, pride, and jealousy of other women. Now the Sultana Djemila was no exception to this somewhat general rule, and having discovered by the aid of her royal papa's chief astrologer, the Munadjim Bashee, that her husband had purchased and secluded in a pretty little kiosk near the waterside at Pera a beautiful Circassian, whom he was wont to visit during pretended absences on military duty, she found means to have the girl carried off, and ordered the Capi Aga, or chief of the White Eunuchs, an unscrupulous Greek, to decapitate her; an operation which he performed by one stroke of his sabre, for the neck of the victim was very slender, and shapely as that of a white swan. Not contented with this, she resolved still farther to be revenged upon her husband the Pasha when he returned to dinner. Seating herself in the divan-hanee while the meal of which the Pasha was to partake alone--as women, no matter what their rank may be, never eat with men in the East--was being spread, she rose up at his entrance, and rendering the usual homage accorded by wives (much to his astonishment), she then clapped her white hands, on which the diamonds flashed, as a signal to serve up the dinner. Crushed and abashed by a long system of domestic tyranny and despair, Mahmoud Jel-al-adeen, who feared his wife as he had never feared the Russians, against whom he had fought valiantly at Silistria, failed to perceive the malignant light that glittered in the beautiful black eyes of Djemila. But a fear of coming evil was upon him, as on that day, when he had ridden past the great Arsenal, he had seen a crow fly towards him; in the East an infallible sign of something about to befall him, as it was a crow that first informed Adam that Abel was slain. "So I pray you, Djemila, neither to taunt nor revile me to-day," said he, "for a strange gloom is upon me."