Her steps gave forth no sound, and she disturbed not the sleeping servants.
She glided like a smooth serpent, or an invisible spirit; her presence was unseen, unfelt, unsuspected.
She enters the inner chamber where lies the unconscious pasha.
She bends over him, she draws forth a knife, slender, tapering to a point almost like a needle.
The pasha still slept on, the fountain outside made sweet music, heard through the curtains and windows.
A smile played upon the pasha's lips.
He was dreaming, perchance, of the rosy bowers and the dark-eyed houris of Paradise.
Suddenly the knife descended, there was the flash of a moment, while it hovered like a hawk over its quarry, the next instant it was buried in the pasha's heart.
A deep groan was the only effort of expiring nature.
The fiercely flashing eyes, and a part of the face of the murderer were now exposed; the dress was that of a woman, but the form and features were those of Abdullah the interpreter.