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play, each separate weapon drinking blood; should see the pie-knife reeking with Arabian gore, the feats of valor that illustrated the defence of Khadra, her drooping figure clasped and sustained by one arm of either Howadji, while the other levelled rank upon rank of the foe, and supplied more heroic romances for the future poets of the Bedoueen; should behold the venerable hairs dragged in the dust, those dreamy eyes of Khadra shedding orphan tears in the young moonlight, and the silence of evening and of victory closing over the piles of "Moslem slain.-""

Rose-lipped reader, believe it so, nor allow Perkyn Pastor an undivided glory.

The hour had come. I watched the old Armenian, who quietly turned the mare and rode up, gun in hand, to the Arabs.

"Strike for your altars and your fires,"

shouted I from the summit of MacWhirter.

But the old gentleman was actually parleying with the foe, was palpably taking snuff-a Napoleonic trait— upon the eve of battle. The conversation was held in a low tone, and without any violent demonstrations. There was even laughter, and when the Commander, who had been listening from a proper distance, came up shaking and rattling, and more heroic than ever, I felt a melancholy reaction, and knew that all was over.

The disputed camel was unloaded, and after the Bedoueen had assisted in placing his load upon another

beast, they graciously exchanged salaams with the Armenian Nestor, and with Mohammad, who wore the happy air of a victor, and slowly retreated, leading the camel with them.

Rose-lipped reader-but what could I do? Nothing was said. What could be said? Had we not "lost the race we never ran?" Could I ever stand again at the tomb of Richard? Could I ever again look Perkyn Pastor in the face?

We plodded on. But I stole another glance at Khadra. In the sunset her dreamy eyes still roamed the horizon, and their soft light overflowed me with forgetfulness and dreams.

XVII.

Quarantine.

A GAY cavalier dashed toward us. It was a cool, bright day. Khadra was chatting briskly, and her camel driver sang more sadly than ever.

Our gay escort caracolled around us as we advanced, chasing young and old from our path, and the people stared at us through the cracks of their doors, as if Death on his horse, with a pale procession of Sorrows, were passing by, and not immortal young Howadji, and the beautiful Khadra. Looking at her and at them, Syria vanished, and I was attendant upon superb Godiva, riding through hushed Coventry.

Presently, from among green trees, a vast wall rose against the sky. The sight kindled our gay cavalier, who plunged his spurs more deeply into his horse, and danced around us with greater delight. At the same moment he pointed eagerly at the wall shining in the sun, and expressed his satisfaction in excited Arabic.

"This is the Dragoman of some Pacha," I said to myself reflectively, "who inhabits yonder spacious castle, and who bids us partake of his magnificent bounties."

* Jenson?” I said alond to the Commander, "tell hin vợ VỀ **ll ourselves of the Pacha's gracious hosnituli

*S,” wamed Golden Sleere.

*What is the function of this individual?” I con tir not the Ercles vein, for the castle and attention saamad se de of that character.

He is the Quarantine Guard," thunder-clapped the Commander

As Howadi journeying from Cairo, we were ex-officio weed with every mortal disease, and hence the great yellow wall before us. It was the Prison of the Quaranwhich is the only method of Christian martyrdom at

present legalized by the Prophet's vicar.

It includes the most loathsome incarceration-separation from all but those victims who chance to be of your own party-the constant attendance of a "Guardiano," who, with a long pole, shoves away from you every one who would wish to shake you by the hand, so that you shall meet your friend or brother, with whom you parted years ago in your native land, and who comes full of all happy or mournful tidings out of the bosom of your family, but who must shout at you from a distance, and although living within the same wall with you for days, never touch the hem of your garment. The rack of fleas, the sting of every kind of vermin, the periodical suffocation by assafetida, are only the garnishing horrors of this martyrdom. You lose by it six or eight weeks of your five oriental months. It is the true Plague.

I knew all that. But I had not as yet, practically ex

perienced a quarantine. I was the child who has not yet burnt his finger, and I wanted to thrust it in. I really did wish to try if the quarantine was so very bad; and I rode up to the portal with a good grace, and passed into the court with the air of a man who arrives to taste the magnificent hospitalities of the Pacha.

It was a huge square court, with a clumsy well in the centre. The ground was hard and gravelly, and all around the sides were rough, plastered walls, tauntingly high, and glaring in the sun. A few squalid, miserable figures stood about the court, vacantly staring at us as we entered; each of them in charge of a Guardiano, with a long pole, which was occasionally levelled to fence them off from each other. Melancholy piles of luggage lay scattered about the court, which presented no festal appearance at all, and satisfied all curiosity in a moment, and in the most emphatic manner.

The long side of the court, opposite the entrance, was formed by a range of buildings of the same rough plaster, and one story in height. This range was pierced at regular intervals by small, square, cell-like doors, at whose sides were windows in the strictest architectural harmony with the building.

"Those," mused I upon the top of MacWhirter, "those recesses are the obsolete potato-bins of the Pacha, whose guests we are."

This was the sum of the prospect. The glaring, roughplastered and gravel-floored court, with the potato-bins opening into it-the well-the figures—the luggage—and overhead, the cloudless blue noon of Syria. Grace and

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