“Frequent journies?” cried the Sultan. “A single one is sufficient to make me sleep till tomorrow. Think of that.”

“Prince,” continued Selim, “it was in one of these tours that I became acquainted with the wife of a colonel of the Spahis, whose name was Ostaluk, a man of bravery, and a good officer, but by no means an agreeable husband, jealous as a tyger, and his person was a sufficient warrant to justify that madness: for he was horribly ugly.

“He had lately espoused Cydalisa, young, lively, handsome; one of those uncommon women, for whom, at the first interview, one feels somewhat more than politeness, from whom one parts with regret, and who return a hundred times to your thoughts, till you see them again.