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Updated: May 25, 2025
On one of those soft and glorious nights such as occur so often beneath the eastern skies, when there was no moon and yet a blaze of light pouring down from the myriad of bright stars, that one would not have missed the absence of the Queen of Night; the walks of the Sultan's gardens, fragrant with flowers and sweet blossoms, were drinking in of the dewy hour, still and silently, save at the point where we once before introduced the person of Komel.
"Alas! gone, gone," sighed both. "Gone!" "Ay, gone forever." "What mean you? whither has she gone? what has happened to render you so miserable?" "Alas, Aphiz; Komel has gone to be the star of some proud Turkish harem," said the father. "And with your consent?" "No! O, no!" "Nor by her own free will, that I know," he continued, quickly.
Komel was safe, and they were again happy. "But who are these, my child?" asked the father of Komel, pointing to Selim and Zillah. "To him am I indebted, jointly with Aphiz, for my deliverance from bondage," she answered, taking Selim's hand and leading him to her father.
The monarch did not even lift his eyes at the guard's salute his thoughts were uneasy, and his brow dark with disappointment. It was but a few hours subsequent to the scene which we have just described, that Komel was again seated in the seraglio gardens on the gentle slope where it curves towards the sea.
Komel was of such a happy and cheerful disposition at heart that she scattered pleasure always about her, but Aphiz's very love rendered him thoughtful and perhaps at times a little melancholy; for he feared that some future chance might in an unforeseen, way rob him of her who was so ineffably dear to him.
They had probably thought little upon the subject of their relation to each other, and had said less, until Komel was nearly sixteen, and then it was only in that tender and hopeful strain of a happy future, and that future to be shared by each other. Aphiz was as noble and generous in spirit as he was handsome in person.
Komel, too, had observed the guard, and now perceived that it was evident by his actions that he saw some tangible form from whence came that dear song; and as she saw him deliberately raise and aim his carbine towards that direction, she could not suppress an involuntary scream as she beheld the Turkish guard preparing to shoot probably some native of her own dear valley.
The Armenian's possessing the entree to the palace was a matter of intense importance to the furtherance of the object, and whatever plan should be adopted it was agreed that he should seek the harem and communicate it to Komel, thus obtaining her aid in its execution. "Doubtless she thinks me dead," said Aphiz; "for the Sultan would take care to tell her that."
Neither Komel nor Aphiz uttered one word, but turned sadly away from the scene that had seemed so applicable to the subject of their conversation. He bade her a tender good night, but as the young mountaineer wended his way down the valley he was sad at heart, and asked himself if Komel might not be that dove.
The idiot boy, half-witted as he was, seemed at once by some natural instinct to divine the relationship that existed between Komel and the prisoner, and suggested to her a plan of communication with him by means of flowers. She saw the boy gather up a handful of loose buds and blossoms from her lap several times, and observed him carry them away.
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