'Allah!' she exclaimed, with a shudder, and a gleam of terror in her expressive eyes, as she shrunk from my arm; 'what if you should be Hussein?'
'I Hussein—I the Yuze Bashi?' I asked, in astonishment.
'Yes—O Mahmoud! there is a strange sparkle in your eye.'
'How could such a thing be?' I asked, smiling at her simplicity.
'Genii give men the power to assume the forms, faces, and voices of others for a time,' she replied, a little reassured; 'have you never heard so?'
'Never.'
'How strange! Have you not heard of the wise Sultan Solymon, and his magic ring—of the evil Geni Sakhur, and how they changed forms and faces for forty days?'
'Never, on my honour.'
'Listen, and I will tell you,' said she, clasping her white hands upon my left shoulder, and reclining her brow upon my cheek, while her speaking eyes were lifted up to mine, as we reclined among the soft and silky cushions; 'listen, and I will tell you a story—oh, a very wonderful story—of things that happened long long ago,' she continued, while her fine eyes diluted and filled with light; 'long before Othmon the Bonebreaker sat on the Sultan's throne, and long before Palæologus perished beneath the cimitars of the Janissaries—but kiss me once again before I begin.'
The request was soon granted, and in her pretty little prattling way, Lola told me the following tale of wonder and magic.