The Arabian's Story. 



Clapping his hands thrice, the heavy curtains parted, and there 

 entered with silent, gliding steps his head servant, Mohammed. "Well, 

 son of the desert, repeat thou the tale, aye, repeat it word for word, 

 and by my beard, if thou contradict thyself but once," and his eyes 

 blazed fire, but stopping himself, he said, "go on." 



" 'Twas but a moon ago the stranger came," Mohammed recited, 

 "came with tablets from the great Lallah, and thou entertained him as 

 befitting a Sheik, though he was light of hair, oil was his tongue, flat- 

 tery caused thou to trust him. To show him thy loved ones, to let him 

 try their paces, even ride Lauretta, our famed Queen." At the name 

 the Sheik bounded to his feet, rage shot lightning from his eyes, vi^ith 

 clenched hands he grasped his spear, and then as quickly seating him- 

 self, he moaned, "m.y beautiful, my beautiful." Then one evening he 

 told you the tale — a great Sheik in far off England who had great power 

 and whose desire was to purchase our beautiful Lauretta — the Mother 

 of Horses^who would give the price, a thousand horses. Ah! thy rage 

 I will remember ever — 'sell Lauretta, my Queen, sell the Mother of all 

 Horses, to whom a million allahs are said — pluck out mine eyes, but 

 part not I with my beautiful, raised here in my tented dowar — but go 

 on.' 



"The morning came, and when Rama came to bring drink to the 

 beloved ones, there was no Lauretta, but in the side of the cloth a 

 great cut. I awoke you, O Master, and though a thousand of your 

 tried horsemen galloped madly over the desert sand, no signs of the 

 Mother was found. The shifting sands, blown with every breeze, hfd 

 her tracks — and the stranger gone." 



.\CT1NG POSTMASTER. 



