GENTLENESS IS POWER. 139 
me to a course of life which my soul disapproves—nay, lift not your 
hand till I have ceased to speak, and then act according to your will. 
I fear not to die, Aborzuf: you do, because you are conscious of a 
reproving heart. You may torment, you may kill me, for I am but as 
a moth in your hand ; but as long as I live you never can, and never 
shall, prevent my seeking my own happiness in the way I have been 
trained, and which I hold supreme. You have this day, in my own 
person, crowned all your former acts of unkindness and cruelty, by 
depriving me of the only remnant that linked me with her whom I 
prized beyond the whole world. You have dishonoured the ashes of 
your wife’s parent. You have vilely scattered them abroad. But 
mark me, Aborzuf! If, in pursuing your violent course, you do not 
meet an answering death, you will bear witness that as the winds shall 
carry those light ashes over this city, so will the spirit that inhabited 
them pervade all your land. The seed is sowa, and you will now 
vainly endeavour to root it out.” Then, looking him in the face with 
that divine aspect owned only by transparent goodness and simplicity, 
she concluded, “I leave you, with the prayer that the influence may 
descend upon you of repentance, with the reformation of just and holy 
deeds.” As she was going towards the door, however, he darted for- 
ward, and, seizing her arm, threw her into the middle of the room, 
exclaiming, “ We shall see who is to conquer, your mother’s spirit or 
your lord and sovereign. You will now consider yourself a prisoner, 
till you give me your bond of oath to act only according to my com- 
mands.” He then flung out at the door, which he locked behind 
him, giving orders for no one but the person he should appoint to ap- 
proach the queen. 
Day after day, and week after week, thus passed by this heroical, 
yet gentle creature. No inducement, no privation, no threat, could 
extort from her the abandonment of her principle. The tyrant, al- 
though kept in a state of furious fever by her steadiness and serenity, 
could not conceal from his own soul an involuntary respect towards 
her, for, indeed, the mere tenacity of purpose that she manifested 
struck a responsive chord in his own breast ; and but for this senti- 
ment (much as he loved her, after the habit of a sensual and self- 
willed worldling), he would quickly have cut the gordian knot of his 
annoyance by hurrying her out of life. After the lapse of a few 
months, during which time the people, upon missing the kind face 
that so frequently used to come among them, had begun to indulge in 
conjectures. ‘These increased into open murmurs, ending in threats 
of no equivocal character. Their many torments and oppressions had 
