A CHAPTER ON ANNUALS. 485 



was a Mahomedan, and she had been taught to look upon the followers of 

 Mahomet as the most odious among mankind. She seemed almost horror- 

 stricken at my vicinity, and her distress momentarily increased. I could not 

 pacify her. She became at length so frightfully agitated, that I conceived it 

 prudent to comply with her wishes, and leave the den to which she appeared 

 to be consigned a hopeless and miserable victim. I groped my way through 

 the long passage and got into the broad sunlight, with a gloomy impression 

 upon my mind, which I in vain endeavoured to shake off. 



" Shortly after I had quitted the precincts of this horrible retreat, what 

 was my consternation at beholding the fakeer almost at my side ! He had 

 evidently returned upon my steps, and had seen me issue from his infernal 

 cell. He passed me without a word, but his large rolling eyes glared upon 

 me with an expression of speechless, yet intense malignity, threatening 

 destruction at every glance, as if the wretch, who had been so miserably 

 ' robbed of nature's fair proportions/ would, through their fiery orbits, have 

 withered me into a thing as odious and marrowless as himself. I passed 

 him hastily, but as soon as I was satisfied that he had entered his abode, and 

 my actions were no longer exposed to his jealous scrutiny, I returned without 

 a moment's delay, and entering the dark passage, placed myself in such a 

 position that I could hear, though I could not see, all that passed. He evi- 

 dently did not expect that any one would dare to violate the sanctity of his 

 dwelling while he was present, and had therefore taken no precautions to 

 exclude me ; so that my proximity was entirely unsuspected. In fact he was 

 too much engrossed by his ferocious purpose to have a thought for any minor 

 object. His whole soul seemed to be merged in one absorbing sentiment of 

 revenge. 



" I had scarcely taken my position, near the entrance of the chamber, 

 when I heard this almost sesquipedal deformity, with a sort of suppressed 

 scream as indicative of fatal fury as the serpent's hiss, upbraiding his victim 

 in terms of the bitterest reproach, with having allowed his sanctuary to be 

 defiled by the polluting foot of a stranger, and that stranger a Mahomedan. 

 She appeared to be mute with terror, as not a single word escaped her lips, 

 though I could hear the deep sob which seemed to be heaved from the very 

 bottom of her heart. He accused her of having appointed an intercourse 

 with an alien, an outcast from the abodes of the blessed, and one doomed to 

 the penalties of everlasting excision. He charged her with having dis- 

 honoured herself and him by an attachment, for which he declared, with the 

 -most frantic asseverations, that she should suffer death. I heard her fall ( on 

 her knees I heard her deep sobs her pathetic appeal her entreaties for 

 mercy pleading with all the eloquence of innocence, but she pleaded in vain. 

 The devil to whom she appealed was not to be softened by entreaty, he 

 gnashed his teeth like a creature maddened ; he raised his arm I no longer 

 hesitated, but rushed from my hiding-place, and reached the side of the 

 monster just as he was about to plunge a large knife into the heart of his 

 victim. At this time I was a soldier, and wore arms. My sword was 

 already in my grasp ; I seized the arm of the ruffian, and at one stroke clove 

 him to the jaws. The skull gaped hideously as he fell, his limbs shrank for 

 a moment, as if lessening their naturally dwarfish proportions ; he then 

 stretched them out to their full extension in the agonies of death, and almost 

 instantly ceased to breathe. He lay upon the earthy floor of the cavern 

 which reeked with his polluted blood, like a reptile, loathsome to the sight, 

 and even in death an object of disgust. I looked on him not only without 

 pity, but with that sort of exultation which I should have felt at having mas- 

 tered a tiger. I now approached the object of my timely interference, who 

 stood trembling before me, as if the knife of her tyrant was still raised to 

 destroy her. She gazed upon me with a mixed expression between uncon- 

 sciousness and terror, which made me at first apprehend that the shock had 



