Shadow of God on Earth," from the Pachalics of Syria and Egypt.

While he spoke, the caravan appeared. The Pacha sat in state in a palanquin, borne between two camels, and surrounded by a brilliant crowd of armed retainers. Several scores of camels followed him bearing his wives, slaves, and luggage, and a body of soldiers closed the rear. It was a handsome pageant, and passed on.

We paused to lunch, and in the azure distance of noon, a group of gazelles leaped and ran. Only the delicate grace of their play was outlined upon the sky. It was soothing as a lullaby of lutes, and as I lay in the warm noon, dozing and musing, I dreamed that the large eyes of the Armenian girl were looking down upon me from a glowing bower upon a rugged, yellow mountain peak-and lo! the beautiful Khadra passing upon 'her camel.

The Commander tarried behind, when we mounted, and we were swaying along drowsily, as becalmed ships swing upon tropical seas-I, for my part, seeing wonderful visions in the moonlight of Khadra's eyes,-when suddenly I heard a half cry, and the steady thump of heavy motion.

Turning immediately, I beheld the golden-sleeved

Commander approaching, all too speedily for his dignity and safety. He had fallen far behind, and his camel, Pomegranate, perceived upon starting, that the caravan was vanishing before him, and that only a hasty flight would bring him again among his peers. Thereupon, just as the adipose Commander, after lunching, was duly settling himself into his seat, and had begun somnolently to smoke, Pomegranate shook the halter from his head by an ingenious movement, and set forward upon the full trot, with a total disregard of Mohammad's digestive functions.

He, as if an earthquake heaved the mountain upon which his city of refuge was builded, dropped his chibouque and clutched at the saddle, moaning and crying aloud for succour. But the implacable and complacent Pomegranate, solely intent upon joining his fellows, jogged horribly on. I saw the unhappy Commander caged in his arsenal, that rattled mockingly around him, violently shaking, and with a piteous look of despair upon his face, which betrayed his consciousness of helplessness, and that he, the arsenal, and all the trappings were slowly slipping off towards the tail.

Oh, gentlemen!" he gasped in irregular syllables, as Pomegranate inexorably advanced.

66

Stop him, Mohammad!" cried the Pacha.

"Oh-damn!-non è possibile," shook out the Muslim Pickwick, as he clattered up in the

rear.

Pomegranate, intent upon revenging in Mohammad's person all that camels have ever suffered from men, would not stop as he reached us, but pushed sternly on.

"Oh, gentlemen!" groaned Golden Sleeve, as he slowly and inevitably slid toward the tail of his beast.

But the gentlemen were faint with laughter, and the delicious eyes of Khadra swam with delight at the spectacle.

The crisis came. Weeping bitterly and grasping at the carpets upon which he sat, and which were slipping with him, down upon the desert he sank, a promiscuous heap of man, weapons, cloaks, carpets, water-bottles, and blankets, and there he sat with legs outstretched, the toes of his red slippers curved up at the sky, and wofully staring back upon the Howadji and the Armenians, who, ready to fall from their own camels with excess of laughter, hurried to the rescue.

We came up, and the Commander did not move. He sat upon the ground pouring out terrific Arabic oaths, yet more in sorrow than in anger. For with the air of a man irretrievably injured, and not

deigning us a solitary glance, he piled Pomegranate again with carpets, and went forward once more with melancholy resignation, to the other vicissitudes of life.

CHAPTER XV.

ADVENTURE.

MY. reader is not heroic perhaps, and has not clung to MacWhirter, but is listlessly turning these pages to strike upon the story of adventures, even as the news-boy in the pit of the Chatham, falls asleep at the opening of the play in which Mr. Kirby performs, but with the strictest injunction to his companion to be awakened at the crisis in the fifth act," Because I want to see him die; for Billy Kirby dies prime."

What is a desert journey without adventures? And what does the arsenal that envelopes the Commander imply?

Often we seemed to be on the verge of adventure. At certain spots, when evening fell, and the camp was pitched, the sage Commander scanned the desert suspiciously, and looked solemnly at the Howadji, whispering, with many shrugs, that this