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The graceful form of Strasolda, and the wild figures of the Uzcoques, swam more and more indistinctly before his closing eyes, until he sank at last into a deep and refreshing slumber. The tribe of the Uzcoques, or Scochi, derived their name from scoco, a refugee or fugitive, a word bearing reference to their origin.
Without bestowing a salutation or a look upon the lady whose apartment he thus unceremoniously entered, he addressed himself at once to the Uzcoque Jurissa. "Away with you!" cried he. "Out of the palace; and quietly, too, as your own shadow. Thumbscrews are waiting for you if you linger." Strasolda gazed in alarm at Father Cipriano.
Conspicuous amidst these, and towering above all in stature, appeared the haughty mistress of Strasolda, attired in a robe of dark green velvet, which well relieved the fairness of her complexion, and displaying upon her finely moulded neck and arms a collar and bracelets of large and lustrous oriental pearls.
It was only, therefore, by representing the captive Uzcoques as less nearly connected with her, that Strasolda could hope for aid to rescue them from the hands of the Venetians. "So much the more should you desire the arrival of the tribute!" exclaimed the lady.
"Holy Virgin!" suddenly exclaimed a clear and feminine voice, apparently close to the mouth of the cavern. "They are already at the castle the gates, no doubt, are shut, the drawbridge raised. Before they could come down it would be too late." The young Turk started. "It is she, Hassan!" he exclaimed. "It is Strasolda, the Christian maiden!"
For a moment the startled Strasolda gazed alternately, and in wild and mute amazement, at Antonio and the stranger; but all doubt and hesitation were dispersed in an instant by the well-remembered and impassioned tones, the martial bearing and Moslem garb of Ibrahim, whose captive she had been before she saw him in the cavern.
A word from me, and thy father, brethren, and kinsmen grace the gallows, and their foul eyrie is leveled with dust." Strasolda pressed her hands upon her heart, and burst into a flood of tears. Then throwing herself at the lady's feet "That word you will never have the cruelty to utter," cried she. "Bethink you, noble lady, of the perils to which they are exposed.
This, Strasolda was most anxious that they should not discover; and her anxiety was scarcely less to prevent the captivity of their leader from becoming known among the pirates themselves. His daughter's entreaties, and his own better nature, had frequently caused Dansowich to check his followers in the atrocities they were too apt to commit.
Bitterly did he now regret his precipitation in leaving Venice the morning after the Battle of the Bridge, and while under the influence of the shock he had received, in beholding the hideous features of an old woman where he had expected to find the blooming countenance of Strasolda.
She cast an humble and sorrowful glance at the lady, and a tear trembled on her long dark lashes. "Why come they not?" repeated the angry dame in a voice half-choked with passion. "By all the saints!" she continued, with a furious look at Strasolda, "I believe thy father, Dansowich, to be the cause of this delay; for well I know it is with small good-will he pays the tribute.
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