130 GENTLENESS IS POWER. 
over the city, and struck terror into the hearts of its inhabitants. 
In the event of either alternative (the refusal or acceptance of Abor- 
zuf’s terms), they were certain of being melancholy sufferers. In 
the one case, they would be sacrificed to his fury, or carried away 
captive ; in the other, they would lose the object of their (all but) 
adoration. Amid the tumult of apprehension and dismay, Caranza 
alone appeared to be calm and dignified. Her own resolution was 
quickly taken, and she would as promptly have acted upon it. But 
Caranza thought not for herself exclusively ; her father was to be 
considered, and the people with whom, by constant intercourse, she 
had formed an almost equal sympathy—that large brotherhood, 
whose joys she had participated, whose wants she had relieved, 
whose sorrows she had allayed, and whose strifes she had appeased. 
These were strong ties: yet did not Caranza wholly disregard her 
self-preservation ; for she was a mortal, though she had drunk deeply 
of that everlasting fountain that knows no taint of impurity. She, 
therefore, from the mere impulse of nature, first thought of her own 
safety, with that of her parent ; to secure which she proposed that 
without delay he should abdicate his throne, and that both should 
speed away beyond the reach of the tyrant. ‘‘ Jewels we can take, 
my father, amply to protect us against dependance or casual need. 
And even should the calamity of destitution fall to our lot, never 
shaJl I lose sight of my mother’s origin, and of my mother’s spirit. 
I feel that I am now more than ever her daughter, and in humble- 
ness and poverty will foster you as she did her parent. Never shall 
you know one privation beyond the pomp and service of royalty. 
The gentle ministerings of a tender and dutiful affection shall take 
the place of precise and unloving punctuality. For the cold obedi- 
ence of a hired servitude, you shall have the quick forethought of a 
fond and dutiful child. The heavy frivolity and the airy substance 
of ceremony you will lose, it is true ; but in its place you shall have 
the large and weighty comfort of unbought, ungrudging attendance. 
Oh! my father, the glory of dominion is a vain thing, except it go 
hand in hand with the desire to scatter the seeds of beneficence, and 
to water the growing flowers of wisdom, which is, universal loving- 
kindness. Throw aside this jewelled yoke, and cast away this costly 
emptiness; but oh! save me from the jaws of the lion, and yourself 
from the reproach of having abandoned your only one to his glut- 
tony !” 
This appeal staggered the faculties of the vaccillating, prostrate 
Azum Beg. He would act generously, he would act magnani- 
mously, had he ever once learned to forget himself, and to sink that 
