"My child, my good Aranka!" said Dame Béldi to the girl, who being about fifteen or sixteen was the eldest of them all; "look after thy little brothers and sisters! And you, my good little lads, comfort Aranka. God bless you! God defend you! One more kiss, Aranka! And one more for you, little David?"
"Madame, time is passing, and Paul Béldi is waiting for thee to open his prison!" intervened Kucsuk Pasha, withdrawing Dame Béldi from the window of her children's prison, who thereupon turned her tear-stained face towards Feriz Beg, and in a passion of grief flung herself on the youth's neck, and said to him in a voice almost indistinguishable for her sobbing:
"Thou noble heart! promise me that thou wilt love my children when I am far away!"
"By Allah, I swear it!" exclaimed the youth, pressing to his bosom the poor woman who was half-fainting for sorrow, "I swear that I will love them for ever!"
Ah! there was one among them whom he had already loved for a long, long time.
"Hasten, lady!" urged the Pasha; "cast this mantle over thee, and place this turban on thy head that the guards may not recognise thee in the distance. The way is long, the time is short."
"God be with you, God be with you!" sobbed Dame Béldi, casting with tremulous hands hundreds of kisses towards her children, who waved their goodbyes to her from their window and then, violently repressing her emotion, she rushed from the dungeon.
Kucsuk Pasha pressed the hand of his son in silence, and left him in Dame Béldi's room.
The children kept on weeping behind their window.
The youth drew nearer to them.