46 I GO A -FISHING. 



supposed to be shot by a Druse, and he might have lain 

 there and bled to death, for aught they dared do till some 

 Turkish' officer had passed an opinion on him. I was just 

 getting off my shop front to go to his assistance, but he 

 had found leisure to recover his scattered brains, and rose 

 to his feet. Finding no bullet-hole in his body, to his 

 evident astonishment, he went to seek his wandering cam- 

 el down the nearest cross street, and then came back by 

 our way. 



" Achmed Haraga, the money-changer next me, ex- 

 changed a word with him as he came along, and a sign 

 that spoke more than words. I had learned that sign in 

 Bagdad, and I knew what it meant. If I had time I 

 would tell you how I learned it. 



" I walked on the wall over Mount Zion, and thought 

 of the woman I had seen by the Sepulchre. There was 

 something very home-like about that English voice. It 

 reminded me of my mother. Did I tell you that my 

 mother was a Christian woman ? She was the daughter 

 of — no matter who— but she was a gentle, beautiful girl ; 

 and because she married my father they turned her out 

 of house and home, and cursed her at the fireside where 

 her mother had prayed. Her mother, thank God, was 

 dead. I think that, but for the memory of the Christian 

 treatment her family gave her, I might by her gentle in- 

 fluences have been a Christian. But I never forgot that 

 curse. My mother died when I was young. I remem- 

 bered her face, its exceeding tenderness and beauty, and 

 somehow the voice of the weeping woman brought back 

 to me that beloved countenance. ' To-morrow,' I said. 

 ' Well, I will go to-morrow to the Sepulchre again, and per- 

 haps I shall see her there;' and, content with that, I went 

 my way homeward by the street of the Armenians. 



