She held forth her hand, which Iskander took and involuntarily pressed. “Noble lady,” he said, “my skill is a mere pretence to enter these walls. The only talisman I bear with me is a message from your friends.”
“Indeed!” said Iduna, in an agitated tone.
“Restrain yourself, noble lady,” said Iskander, interposing, “restrain yourself. Were you any other but the daughter of Hunniades I would not have ventured upon this perilous exploit. But I know that the Lady Iduna has inherited something more than the name of her great ancestors—their heroic soul. If ever there were a moment in her life in which it behoved her to exert all her energies, that moment has arrived. The physician who addresses her, and his attendant who waits at hand, are two of the Lady Iduna’s most devoted friends. There is nothing that they will not hazard, to effect her delivery; and they have matured a plan of escape which they are sanguine must succeed. Yet its completion will require, on her part, great anxiety of mind, greater exertion of body, danger, fatigue, privation. Is the Lady Iduna prepared for all this endurance, and all this hazard?”
“Noble friend,” replied Iduna, “for I cannot deem you a stranger, and none but a most chivalric knight could have entered upon this almost forlorn adventure; you have not, I trust, miscalculated my character. I am a slave, and unless heaven will interpose, must soon be a dishonoured one. My freedom and my fame are alike at stake. There is no danger, and no suffering which I will not gladly welcome, provided there be even a remote chance of regaining my liberty and securing my honour.”
“You are in the mind I counted on. Now, mark my words, dear lady. Seize an opportunity this evening of expressing to your gaolers that you have already experienced some benefit from my visit, and announce your rising confidence in my skill. In the meantime I will make such a report that our daily meetings will not be difficult. For the present, farewell. The Prince Mahomed waits without, and I would exchange some words with him before I go.”
“And must we part without my being acquainted with the generous friends to whom I am indebted for an act of devotion which almost reconciles me to my sad fate?” said Iduna. “You will not, perhaps, deem the implicit trust reposed in you by one whom you have no interest to deceive, and who, if deceived, cannot be placed in a worse position than she at present fills, as a very gratifying mark of confidence, yet that trust is reposed in you; and let me, at least, soothe the galling dreariness of my solitary hours, by the recollection of the friends to whom I am indebted for a deed of friendship which has filled me with a feeling of wonder from which I have not yet recovered.”
“The person who has penetrated the Seraglio of Constantinople in disguise to rescue the Lady Iduna,” answered Iskander, “is the Prince Nicæus.”
“Nicæus!” exclaimed Iduna, in an agitated tone. “The voice to which I listen is surely not that of the Prince Nicæus; nor the form on which I gaze,” she added, as she unveiled. Beside her stood the tall figure of the Armenian physician. She beheld his swarthy and unrecognised countenance. She cast her dark eyes around with an air of beautiful perplexity.
“I am a friend of the Prince Nicæus,” said the physician. “He is here. Shall he advance? Alexis,” called cut, Iskander, not waiting for her reply. The page of the physician came forward, but the eunuch accompanied him. “All is right,” said Iskander to Kaflis. “We are sure of our hundred purses. But, without doubt, with any other aid, the case were desperate.”
“There is but one God,” said the eunuch, polishing his carbuncle, with a visage radiant as the gem. “I never repented patronizing men of science. The prince waits without. Come along!” He took Iskander by the arm. “Where is your boy? What are you doing there, sir?” inquired the eunuch, sharply, of Nicæus, who, was tarrying behind, and kissing the hand of Iduna.