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Updated: May 24, 2025
It was a gentle, confiding and entreating appeal, and for a moment the stern features of the monarch did relent, but it was for an instant only his thoughts troubled him, and he was ill at ease. In the meantime Aphiz Adegah found himself confined in a close prison; the entire current of his feelings were changed by the discovery he had made.
All the splendor that Sultan Mahomet could offer her, the rank and wealth, were all counted as naught in comparison with the tender affection which had grown up with her from childhood. She awaited in silence the monarch's mood, but resolved to appeal to his mercy, and beg him to release both Aphiz and herself, that they might return together once more to their distant home.
From childhood she had been taught to believe the Swedenborgian doctrine, of the presence of the spirits of those who have gone before us to the better land; and she deemed, as we have said, that Aphiz Adegah was ever by her side, listening to her, and sympathizing with all she did and said.
All there knew their story, and could appreciate their feelings, while not a word was spoken, to break the spell of so joyous a meeting, the joy of such unhoped for bliss. "The Sultan then deceived me," said Komel, suddenly recovering her voice. "He was himself deceived, and thinks me dead," replied Aphiz; "my escape was miraculous."
She dreamed, too, of home and all its happy associations. Once more, in fancy, she was by her own cottage door; once more she breathed her native mountain air, once more sat by the side of Aphiz, her loved, dearly loved companion. Ah! how her dimpled cheeks were wreathed in smiles while she slept; how happy and unconscious was the beautiful slave.
Therefore when the Armenian doctor and Selim found that their conversation had been overheard by Aphiz, they neither feared his betraying him, nor suspected the deep interest that the young Circassian felt in the theme of their remarks. "You were speaking of a slave of the Sultan's harem, named Komel," he said, approaching them.
Of course the generous conduct of Captain Selim, the Sultan's officer, who had rescued him from drowning, and then hospitably entertained him, was the most spontaneous action of a noble heart towards a fellow-being in distress, but if he should know by what means Aphiz had come in the situation which he had found him, would not his loyalty to the Sultan demand that he should at once render up the escaped prisoner once more to the executioner's hands?
At last they came to a spot from whence the lovely valley opened just below them, when suddenly Aphiz pointed to a projecting and dead limb of a tree far beneath them, and asked Komel if she remembered the scene of the hawk and dove. "Alas! dear Aphiz, but too well. It was indeed an unheeded warning." "But the dove is once more restored now, dearest, and we must look only for happy omens."
Entrusting this to the boy she indicated what he was to do with it, while the poor half-witted being seemed in an ecstacy of delight at his commission, and soon deposited the precious token inside the window of Aphiz's prison. It needed no conjuror to tell Aphiz whom that floral letter came from.
Then a sort of superstitious awe crept over the slave as she remembered that it was in these very waters that Aphiz had been drowned. Had his spirit come back to sing to her the song they had so often sung together? Thus she thought while she listened, and still the same sweet familiar notes came daintily over the night air to her ears.
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