II. HER SISTER FROM THE NORTH
A week passed and Noren regained his health and vigour. But he was still troubled with anxious thoughts, and vainly endeavoured to penetrate the deep mystery which surrounded him. His young heart bounded at the thought of the high enterprise which awaited him, and yet the hints of the Tartar girl had filled him with an unknown dread. He had faced dangers in the field of battle, but was little fitted for intrigues and deeds which required the dagger rather than the sword. And his mind misgave him much when he thought of dark midnight schemes formed by a woman within the precincts of an unknown place. He looked around him but obtained no light. The marble decorations and the embroidered curtains of his gorgeous prison gave him no response, and the guards who paced outside his barred room were as silent as the grave.
Noren was permitted to go up by a winding staircase to the roof of the chamber which he occupied. There he breathed the fresh air of the open sky and walked to and fro, sometimes for hours, till the stars of the clear Indian sky glistened above his head. He saw guards and soldiers in the ample courtyard before him, and marble spires of edifices behind him, screened by a lofty stone wall. Such spires Noren
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