In the mean time the lady’s son grew up; he was very handsome, and not wanting ability, found means to please the sultan my father, who conceived a great friendship for him.  All the courtiers perceived it, and guessed that the young man might in the end be my husband.  In this idea, and looking on him already as heir to the crown, they made their court to him, and every one endeavoured to gain his favour.  He soon saw into their designs, grew conceited of himself, and forgetting the distance there was between our conditions, flattered himself with the hopes that my father was fond enough of him, to prefer him before all the princes in the world.  He went farther; for the sultan not offering me to him as soon as he could have wished, he had the boldness to ask me of him.  Whatever punishment his insolence deserved, my father was satisfied with telling him he had other thoughts in relation to me, and shewed him no further resentment.  The youth was incensed at this refusal; he resented the contempt, as if he had asked some maid of ordinary extraction, or as if his birth had been equal to mine.  Nor did he stop here, but resolved to be revenged on the sultan, and with unparalleled ingratitude conspired against him.  In short, he murdered him, and caused himself to be proclaimed sovereign of Deryabar.  The first thing he did after the murder of my father was to come into my apartment, at the head of a party of the conspirators.  His design was either to take my life or oblige me to marry him.  The grand vizier, however, who had been always loyal to his master, while the usurper was butchering my father, came to carry me away from the palace, and secured me in a friend’s house, till a vessel he had provided was ready to sail.  I then left the island, attended only by a governess and that generous minister, who chose rather to follow his master’s daughter, and share her misfortunes, than to submit to a tyrant.

The grand vizier designed to carry me to the courts of the neighbouring sultans, to implore their assistance, and excite them to revenge my father’s death; but heaven did not concur in a resolution we thought so just.  When we had been but a few days at sea, there arose such a furious storm, that, in spite of all the mariners’ art, our vessel, carried away by the violence of the winds and waves, was dashed in pieces against a rock.  I will not spend time in describing our shipwreck.  I can but faintly represent to you how my governess, the grand vizier, and all that attended me, were swallowed up by the sea.  The dread I was seized with did not permit me to observe all the horror of our condition.  I lost my senses; and whether I was thrown upon the coast upon any part of the wreck, or whether heaven, which reserved me for other misfortunes, wrought a miracle for my deliverance, I found myself on shore when my senses returned.