28 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



offer to leave her room to pass. I concluded, there- 

 fore, that the momentary withdrawal of the veil had 

 not been lost upon him ; and that he, as well as my- 

 self, had been awed by the beauty of that face, which 

 by rights would be beheld till the day of her death, 

 of all living men, by her husband alone. ... I 

 saw that face but once again, long afterwards, and 

 under strange circumstances. I was being strangled 

 by two African negroes : grinning horribly, their 

 white teeth gleamed down upon me in savage 

 triumph ; and with their giant limbs they were 

 pressing the life's breath from my body. Against 

 their brawny strength I was powerless as a child to 

 resist. A veiled figure approached. At once I recog- 

 nised that step and lofty mien. For one instant the 

 veil was thrown back, and there was the face with its 

 strange beauty ; but this time the eyes glittered with 

 a cruel joy, as they drank in the death-struggles of 

 the infidel. . . . The sense of suffocation awoke 

 me, and I found that my saddle, which I had put up 

 on end to protect my head and shoulders from the 

 night-wind, had fallen forward upon me, and was 

 covering my face and neck. . 



The old Mirza kept me talking a long time, plying 

 me with innumerable pipes and countless cups of tea ; 

 his little girl, a pretty rosy-cheeked child, was play- 

 ing about the room ; her long black hair was plaited 

 carefully, and interwoven with it were large gold 

 pieces; amulets, engraven with holy verses of the 



