The chief the three slaves uttered not a word of reply, but exhibited the imperial signet, and at the same time unrolled from the coil which he had hitherto held in his hand a long green silken bowstring. At that ominous spectacle Ibrahim fell back, his countenance becoming ashy pale, and his frame trembling with an icy shudder from head to foot. "Choose between this and her," whispered the slave, in a deep tone, as he first glanced at the bowstring and then looked toward Calanthe, who knew that some terrible danger was impending, but was unable to divine where or when it was to fall. "Merciful Allah!" exclaimed the grand vizier; and throwing himself upon the floor, he buried his face in his hands. In another moment Calanthe was seized and gagged, before even a word or a scream could escape her lips; but Ibrahim heard the rustling of her dress as she unavailingly struggled with the monsters in whose power she was. The selfish ingrate! he drew not his scimiter to defend her--he no longer remembered all the tender love she bore him--but, appalled by the menace of the bowstring, backed by the warrant of the sultan's signet ring, he lay groveling on the rich Persian carpet, giving vent to his alarms by low and piteous groans. Then he heard the door once more close as softly as possible: he looked up--glared with wild anxiety around--and breathed more freely on finding himself alone! For the Ethiopians had departed with their victim! Slowly rising from his supine posture, Ibrahim approached the table, filled a crystal cup with sherbet to the brim, and drank the cooling beverage, which seemed to go hissing down his parched throat--so dreadful was the thirst which the horror of the scene just enacted had produced. Then the sickening as well as maddening conviction struck to his very soul, that though the envied and almost worshiped vizier of a mighty empire--having authority of life and death over millions of human beings, and able to dispose of the governments and patronage of huge provinces and mighty cities--he was but a miserable, helpless slave in the eyes of another greater still--an ephemeron whom the breath of Solyman the Magnificent could destroy! And overcome by this conviction, he threw himself on the sofa, bursting into an agony of tears--tears of mingled rage and woe. Yes; the proud, the selfish, the haughty renegade wept as bitterly as ever even a poor, weak woman was known to weep! * * * * *