Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/144

 dress, and had very beautiful pearls round her neck and in her ears, and was certainly a very lovely woman. She wept so piteously that all had great compassion upon her. When the executioners brought her in front of the serail of the chiaous pasha, and related the offer which the pasha had made, she begged the executioners to lead her nearer the Greek, her former lover, on seeing whom she for a long time could not speak for weeping. When, after long wailing, she was able to call him by name, she begged him in Greek, with all her heart, for God’s sake, to take pity upon the youth of both of them, and to become a Mahometan, saying that they could then live together many years in joy and happiness. What the woman said to the man during that time was related to us afterwards by Greeks who heard her speak. She spoke to him to almost the following effect:—“Alas! have pity! have pity upon me, unhappy damsel that I am! and remember that we were to have been married, had not a cruel misfortune interfered with it. Cursed be the hour in which I went to that bath! My life and death are now in thy hands; harden not thy heart, I beseech thee; grant the wish of the great pasha. Have pity upon ourselves, our parents, and our friends, and be not so hard-hearted, being able to help us both, as to neglect it. Nay, rather let the sun and moon beam still upon us whilst we are young. Say—alas! I entreat with the most earnest entreaty possible—that thou art willing to become a Mahometan.” In answer to all these words he briefly answered her that she should rather entrust her soul to the Lord God, and not speak in vain.

The Turks, on hearing this, gnashed their teeth at