One stipulation he, however, made; that the name of Mustapha Pasha should be among the seven chosen ones from whom the felech of the Princess was to select her a husband; and, having thus quieted his Imperial conscience, he made his namaz with all proper solemnity, ere he calmly drew from beneath his prayer-carpet the name of Mohammed Saïd Pasha!
But the affections cannot change so lightly as the will; and when it was announced to the young Princess that she was to receive a new suitor, and to banish all memory of him whom she had so long learnt to love, she sank beneath the tidings; and rejected the consolations which were officiously poured forth by her attendants. The Sultana-mother wept and entreated; but for the first time her tears and her entreaties were alike vain: the Princess only turned aside in despairing silence, or bade them leave her to die alone, since death was all that remained to her. Hours passed away; hours of dull, aching anguish that wrung and withered her young heart; and they brought her food, but she put it aside with loathing—and darkness came; but it yielded no rest to her; and on the morrow her dim eyes and haggard cheek so terrified the Sultana that she at once decided on communicating to her Imperial partner the effect of his decision.
The Sultan came, and used every blandishment that could win, and every threat that could terrify; but he failed to wrench the young fond heart from its allegiance. The same trite commonplaces which rise instinctively to the lips of all domestic despots, be they Christians or Islamites, were duly set forth; but love spurns at argument; and the Princess only replied by falling senseless into the arms of her slaves. Days of suffering followed, during which she lay like a blighted flower upon her cushions; hoping one moment against reason; and the next resigning herself without a struggle to the deepest anguish of despair.
Time wore on, and at length she learnt that her destined husband had arrived in the capital! Then came the gifts of the new suitor, and the ceremonies of the betrothal; and she knew and felt that there was indeed no longer any hope. The conviction was too much for her young strength; and the courtiers were pouring forth their offerings, and the Pashas of the provinces were pressing forward with their congratulations, while the victim of state policy was lying on a sick bed, surrounded by tears and lamentations.
And thus they decked her for the bridal, and carried her forth in her gilded carriage to her new home; and she submitted passively, for she knew that it was in vain to oppose her destiny. But when the proud and happy Saïd Pasha had borne her in his arms to the state saloon of the harem, preceded by dancing-girls, and fair slaves glittering with jewels, and swinging censers of costly incense upon her path, and had seated her on the brocaded divan only to throw himself at her feet, and to vow himself to an existence of fond and grateful obedience to her every wish; then did the woman-heart of the Princess flash forth as she sternly commanded him to leave her. The Pasha obeyed not; he believed this coldness to be only a caprice of his Imperial bride, and he lost himself in all the lover-like hyperbole which he doubted not would be expected from him.
But the young bridegroom was not long suffered to be deluded by so flattering a deceit, for the reply of the Princess to his protestations was too direct and convincing, to admit of his indulging the faintest doubt of his misfortune. Around her neck she wore a slight chain, wrought in dark silk, similar to those to which the Turkish ladies commonly attach an amulet; and for all answer she withdrew this chain, and revealed to the heart-stricken Pasha the portrait of her first suitor.
“It was the Sultan’s gift;” she said firmly, “I was told that he was to be my husband, and they taught me to love him—I loved him ere I knew that such a being as Saïd Pasha lived—I shall love him so long as this heart has power to beat against his likeness. I will not deceive you; I can look on you only with loathing: my fate is sealed; I shall soon lie in the tomb of my fathers. Inshallàh—I trust in God—life is not eternal, and the broken heart ceases at last to suffer.”
Saïd Pasha had triumphed: he had won an Imperial bride; but he was a blighted man. He had seen Mustapha Pasha ride in the marriage train which did honour to his own nuptials; but a few hours only had elapsed ere he envied his discomfited rival the comparative happiness of freedom.
That rival was, however, far from being reconciled to his fate, irrevocable as it was. He forgot that he had lost a proud bride in the memory of her youth, her beauty, and her affection. He lingered near her regal dwelling at midnight to catch the reflection of a taper through the lattices of one of its many windows, trusting that he might chance to look upon the light which beamed on her. His marriage gift was the most costly of all that glittered in her trousseau—and he saw the different Pashas who had been called to court to swell the pageant, depart to their provinces, without possessing the courage to follow their example.
Many wondered why Mustapha Pasha, who was supreme at Adrianople, remained in comparative subserviency at Stamboul; and all whispered mysteriously of the change which had come over his nature. He was still urbane and courteous, with a gracious word and a ready smile for all; but the words came less freely, and the smiles were fainter, and even wore at times a tinge of bitterness.