All For Beauty.

Manawatu Herald, 16 February 1905, Page 3

All For Beauty.

Russian Society in Central Asia is agape at the extraordinary adventures of Mile. Anna Samoiloff and her narrow escape from death. Mile, Samoiloff, the daughter of a petty official of Askhabad, was distinguished by her remarkable beauty. At an open-air entertainment, to which a few high-class natives were invited, she made the acquaintance of Husseim Khanoff, a rich chief, well known for his wealth and general wildness. Hussein, before he had spoken to the girl ten minutes, boldly proposed that she should elope with him, promising her the life of a queen among the mountains. Terrified and without answering a word, she left the entertainment and ran home. Next day, when Samoiloff and his daughter were driving in the environs they were swooped down upon by three armed men, in one of whom Mile. Samoiloff, to her horror, recognised the Prince of the Hills. Without offering any violence to her father, but binding him and the driver hand and foot, the abductors seized the girl and carried her off. Hussein’s fortified house in the hills was raided that evening, but its master and all its servants had flown. For a week the search was continued vainly, but at last the Russians, having received notice that the girl had been carried to another of Hussein’s houses across the frontier, planned to surround it by night. Hussein and bis companions, seeing themselves outnumbered, broke through and escaped. Piteous moans guided the rescuers to Mile. Samoiloff. To a post driven in the ground near a small lake she was bound by leathern thongs, and there she had been four days without food and exposed to intense cold. Hussein had offered to make her his chief wife, and after three days’ threats and arguments had ordered her to be bound to a stake, declaring that he would not release her until she gave her