light Ibrahim and Hassan beheld the maiden kneeling in the midst of the
pirates, her tearful face covered by her fair and slender fingers. The
next moment she raised her head and gazed into the cavern.

As she did so, the sorrowful expression of her features changed, and her
countenance was lighted up with a look of rapture, while a loud cry burst
from her lips. Through the opening in the smoke, the prisoners became
visible to her as they lay motionless in the interior of the cave, the
light from the flames glowing on their red garments, and giving them the
appearance of two statues of fire. In the handsome countenance of one of
the figures thus suddenly revealed to her, Strasolda recognized the young
Moslem, whose prisoner she had been, and whose noble person and bearing,
courteous manners, and gentle treatment, had more than once since the day
of her captivity, occupied the thoughts and fancy of the Uzcoque maiden.
Unaware of Ibrahim's capture, Strasolda did not for an instant suppose
that she beheld him in flesh and blood before her. To her excited and
superstitious imagination, the figures of the Turks appeared formed out of
fire itself, and she doubted not that the spirits of the cave had chosen
this means of presenting to her, as in a prophetic mirror, a shadowy
fore-knowledge of future and more favourable events.

While she yet gazed eagerly on what she deemed a supernatural appearance,
the rent in the veil of smoke suddenly closed, the flame sank down, and
again all was gloom and darkness in the cavern. The thick stifling vapour
of the damp wood, augmenting as the flame diminished, was now so
overpowering that the Turks were in imminent danger of suffocation. In
their extremity, making a violent effort, their pent up voices found vent
in a cry of such startling wildness, that the Uzcoques, struck with terror,
sprang back from the mouth of the cave, hurrying the maiden with them. The
cry was not repeated, for the Turks had lost all consciousness from the