Though Ibrahim Pasha felt acutely, yet his countenance, as we have before said, expressed nothing--he was still sufficiently master of his emotions to retain them pent up in his own breast; and if he could not appear perfectly happy, he would not allow the world to perceive that his soul harbored secret care. He entered the palace now destined to become his abode, and found himself the lord and master of an establishment such as no Christian monarch in Europe possessed. But as he passed through marble halls and perfumed corridors lined with prostrate slaves--as he contemplated the splendor and magnificence, the wealth and the luxury, by which he was now surrounded--and as he even dwelt upon the hope--nay, the more than hope, the conviction, that he should full soon be blest with the hand of a being whose ravishing beauty was ever present to his mental vision--that still small voice which he could not hush, appeared to ask what avail it was for a man, if he gain the whole world but lose his own soul? But Ibrahim Pasha was not the man to give way to the influence of even reflections so harrowing as these; and he immediately applied himself to the business of the state, to divert his mind from unpleasurable meditations. Holding a levee that same day, he received and confirmed in their offices all the subordinate ministers; he then dispatched letters to the various governors of provinces to announce to them his elevation to the grand viziership; and he conferred the Pashalic of Egypt upon the fallen minister, Piri Pasha. In the afternoon he granted audiences to the embassadors of the Christian powers; but the Florentine envoy, it should be observed, had quitted Constantinople some weeks previously--indeed, at the time when the sultan undertook his expedition against Rhodes; for the representative of the republic had entirely failed in the mission which had been intrusted to him by his government. In the evening, when it was quite dusk, Ibrahim retired to his apartment; and hastily disguising himself in a mean attire, he issued forth by a private gate at the back part of the palace. Intent upon putting into execution a scheme which he had hastily planned that very afternoon, he repaired to the quarter inhabited by the Christians. There he entered a house of humble appearance where dwelt a young Greek, with whom he had been on friendly terms at that period when his present greatness was totally unforeseen--indeed, while he was simply the private secretary of the Florentine envoy. He knew that Demetrius was poor, intelligent and trustworthy; and it was precisely an agent of this nature that Ibrahim required for the project which he had in view.