But finally a new spirit hissed into his ears. It was Nemesis. He felt that this was the moment when a just retribution had returned upon himself. For he well knew the face that lay weeping beneath the heap of bejewelled lace and silk. It was that of the Dodola, whom he had flung into the arms of the Albanian Voivode Amesa when he was awaiting the embrace of some more princely maiden. And now the sarcasm of fate had thrown her into his arms.
"Allah! Thou wast even with me this time," he confessed back of his clenched teeth.
"But doubtless," he thought, "it was through the information I gave to the Aga that this girl has been stolen away from Amesa."
"Would that heaven rid me of her so easily!" he muttered. "Yet that is easy; thanks to our Moslem law, which says, 'Thou mayest either retain thy wife with humanity or dismiss her with kindness.'[101] Yet I cannot dismiss her with kindness. She can not go back to the royal harem. If I dismiss her I harm her, and Allah's curse will be fatal if I wrong this creature again—to say nothing of the Padishah's if I throw away his gift. I must keep her. Well! Bacaloum! Bacaloum! It is not so bad a thing after all to have a woman like that for one's slave; for a wife without one's heart is but a slave. Well!" He raised the veil again from the now sitting woman.
The mutually stupid gaze carried them both through several years which had passed since they had parted at Amesa's castle.
Elissa was easily induced to tell her story. Assuming that it might be already known to her new lord, she gave it correctly; and therefore it differed substantially from that she had told to Morsinia. She had been but a few days in Amesa's home when he discovered that she was not the person he had presumed her to be. In an outburst of rage he would have taken her life, but was led by an old priest to adopt a more merciful method of ridding himself of her. To have returned her to the village above the Skadar would have filled the country with the scandal, and made Amesa the laughing stock of all. She was therefore sent within the Turkish lines, with the certainty of finding her way to some far-distant country. Her beauty saved her from a common fate, and she was sent as a gift to the young Padishah by an old general, into whose hands she had fallen.
Ballaban assured the woman of his protection, and also that the time would come when he would compensate her for any grief she had endured through his fault. In the meantime she was retained in the luxurious comfort of her new abode.