The Sultan was reclining on the cushions when she entered, but rose to meet her.
"Welcome, O beautiful one!" said he; "how long to me has been the time, deprived of your presence! If it has changed your resolution, I am content. Come you now to enjoy with me life, happiness, and triumph, or—" His brow darkened as she stood silent and motionless, and he could perceive no signs of acquiescence. There was a pause.
"Finish, O my lord!" said Azora, at length, "'or death,' you would say,—God's will be done!—Yet, O my lord!" and she threw herself at his feet, "pause ere you pronounce my doom. Oh, throw not away the high privilege of mercy. If in truth you loved me, could your tongue consign me to death? Impossible! To torture? Oh, the thought is horrible! Save me! O king, save me! though not for my sake, for your own, for the sake of your undying fame. Oh, will you for a caprice forego the satisfaction of doing a noble deed, and tarnish with blood the annals of a beneficent reign? What will be said among the nations when it is known that the Sultan Mulai Abd Er Rahman has shed the innocent blood of a woman? Oh, be merciful, and spare me!"
The Sultan was moved by this appeal, seconded by her imploring action and anguished face, but was too intent on his purpose to give way to more than a passing emotion.
"Arise," he said, "why kneel to me; are you not the arbitress of your own fate? 'Tis I that implore you to save yourself and have pity on me. That I wish not your death, which is forfeit to the law, witness my patience, and the efforts I have made to change your mad resolve. But that I love you, rather would I see you die, than given to the arms of another. What! shall I see a vile slave possess that which his sovereign sued for in vain? But what is this strange infatuation? Oh, change but your faith, and I will raise you from your base state, exposed to insult and persecution, to be the favourite of a Sultan, with slaves to obey your every wish—power to protect your friends—in short, all, all that a king can offer, shall be yours! Why will you thus madly persist in throwing away your life? Speak but the word—"
"All this, O my lord," said Azora, firmly, "shall not bribe me to betray my God; I ask mercy, but I ask it unconditionally. What law have I broken? what crime have I committed, for which to sue for pardon? yet the mercy you offer is more cruel than your unjust sentence of death! Were you a just king, my false accusers—for you know them false—would ere this have paid the penalty of their perjury. I am in your power, and may God help me! I will endure all you can inflict rather than save my innocent life by a dishonourable and criminal compromise. But oh, how shall this black deed sully the brightness of your reign to all posterity! We shall meet again before the tribunal of the Lord of kings, and before whom Sultans will tremble."
She had drawn herself up to her full height while thus speaking, and her bosom heaving, and her eyes flashing with enthusiasm, she stood like an inspired prophetess, but with a martyr's calm resolve. The Sultan had thus far endeavoured to stifle his feelings, but now his rage became ungovernable.
"It is thus, then, that you defy me," he said: "now hear the alternative. If the thought is dreadful, how will you bear the reality? How will you bear to be the gaze and scoff of a ruffian rabble—to be stripped by the rude hands of the executioner? How will your delicate frame bear the agony when thrown alive into the burning pile? Then, when the hot fire slowly seizes on each writhing limb, and every scorched nerve overwhelms your soul with agonising torments, then—when too late, you will repent your refusal of my proffered mercy. Then—when too late, you will wish to recall this lost opportunity, and your tender limbs will fall a lifeless corse among the smouldering ashes. This is your doom! I have said!"
With his face and frame agitated by his passion, and casting a malignant look on the lovely but trembling girl, he rushed from the apartment. Azora's heart sickened within her, as she listened, with suspended breath, to the description of the torture that awaited her. It was a fearful trial, and she had well-nigh sunk under it. Finding herself alone, her firmness forsook her; she threw herself on the cushions, and burst into an agony of tears, and convulsive sobs shook her frame; but this was a luxury, compared to the horrible feeling that came over her, when, after a time, she raised her deadly pale face, from which all traces of tears had passed away, and remained with her eyes fixed on vacancy, while an icy chill seemed to curdle her heart's blood, and a tightness in the throat oppressed her almost to suffocation, as she realized the appalling picture of an ignominious death thus presented to her as the alternative of her resistance. Was it surprising that, at such a trying moment, her existence suspended trembling on the verge of the tomb, and failing nature standing terror-struck on the brink of the awful abyss that separated her from eternity,—she, so young, should shrink from taking the fatal plunge. Already was she beginning to parley with conscience,—already was her resolution wavering, and the bright crown of martyrdom, which seemed on the point of encircling her brow, was ascending from whence it was offered, as the love of life, and the enjoyments of the world, were resuming their dominion over her young heart, when, suddenly, overcoming herself with an almost supernatural effort, she fell on her knees, and poured out her anguished soul before God, imploring Him to take the love of the world from her heart, and strengthen her to support the trials that awaited her for her attachment to her faith. The struggle was past, her prayer was heard. She arose from her knees, a radiant smile lighting up her angel face, and she could now calmly contemplate death, as a passage from her sufferings here to everlasting life in the presence of her Redeemer.
A stranger, unacquainted with the peculiar character and customs of this people, might naturally be disposed to ask, why the Sultan should be so scrupulous in his conduct towards a Jewess, of a race, moreover, described to be in a state of semi-servitude. It was exactly in the fact of her being a Jewess, that the obstacles the Sultan had to contend with lay.