Hassan looked long and blankly at her, it seemed as if he would need some time wherein to rally his scattered senses sufficiently to recognise anyone. But Azrael was able to exercise a strange magnetic influence over him, and he would awake from the deepest sleep whenever she approached him.
Azrael sat down beside the couch and embraced the Vizier, while Mariska, with tender bashfulness, turned her head away from them; and Hassan, observing it, drew Azrael's head to his lips and whispered in her ear:
"I have had evil dreams again. Hamaliel, the angel of dreams, appeared before me, and gave me to understand that if I did not kill this woman, he would kill me. My life is poisoned because she is here. My mind is not in proper order. I often forget who I am. I fancy I am living at Stambul, and looking out of the window am amazed that I do not see the Bosphorus. This woman must die. This will cure me. I will kill her this very day."
Mariska did not hear these words, all her attention was fixed upon the babbling of her child; and Azrael, with an enchanting smile, flung herself on the breast of the Vizier, embracing his waggling head and covering his face with kisses, and the smile of her large dark eyes illuminated his gloomy soul.
Poor Hassan! He fancies that that enchanting smile, that embrace, those kisses are meant for him, but the shape of a handsome youth hovers before the mind of the odalisk, and that is why she kisses Hassan so tenderly, embraces him so ardently, and smiles so enchantingly. She fancies 'tis her ideal whom she sees and embraces.
Ah, the extravagances of love!
CHAPTER XVIII.
SPORT WITH A BLIND MAN.
Azrael had felt afraid when Hassan said: "I must kill this woman to-day." A fearful spectre was haunting the mind of the Vizier; he must be freed from this spectre, and made to forget it.
So Azrael devised an odd sport for the man on the verge of imbecility.