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 that I was upon the crisis of my fate.—Ismail too seemed to me to be disturbed; he bade me sit down, and we sat silently for some time gazing on one another; there was only one small oil light burning in a recess of the wall, which made the apartment very gloomy, and this trifling circumstance contributed still more to increase the morbid feeling within me. I believe I almost gasped for breath; I could bear it no longer. I arose, threw myself at his feet, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping.

"Why, Ameer, my child, my son," said he kindly and caressingly, "what is this? what has troubled you? has some fair one bewitched you? have you got into any difficulty while I have been away? tell me, my boy; you know you have no one in the world so fond of you as your father, and, alas! you have now no mother."

When my feelings gave me power of utterance, fearfully I repeated to him what I had heard from him and the rest, on the memorable night I have before related. When I had finished, I rose up, and with a throbbing heart said, "I have erred, my father; my curiosity, a boy's curiosity, overcame me, but since then my feelings have changed, why I know not;