YUSEF DANCES THE It A AS. 225 
no deception about its being fast; and then bidding us all 
good-night, he reluctantly departed through the front door— 
came back again in five minutes for a drink of water, looked 
at the door that was bolted, at the tall Southerner, the En¬ 
glish Captain and myself, then at Yusef—departed once more, 
and before we were asleep, slyly peeped in again to be 
quite certain that there was nothing wrong, closed the front 
door softly, and retired to the adjoining room, where he 
talked seriously to his wife—probably about the leak in his 
house—for more than an hour. By the time he had con¬ 
cluded, every body was apparently asleep. There were two, 
however, who were very far from being asleep. One was 
myself; I could not help thinking that the inner door, although 
bolted on the right side for us, in case of an invasion from 
that quarter, was bolted on the wrong side for the husband 
of Yusef’s niece, in case of an invasion from our side, which I 
regarded as much more to be apprehended. The other mem¬ 
ber of our party referred to as not being asleep, was Yusef 
himself. He had pulled his mattress up within a few feet of 
the bolted door, after every body was quiet, covered himself 
up carefully in the blankets, and commenced snoring imme¬ 
diately ; which was precisely what kept me awake—not the 
snoring but the suspicions aroused by it. Yusef never snored 
when he was asleep. I knew him too well for that; he was 
always as wide awake when he snored as he ever was in his 
life. Consequently I kept a very small corner of my weather- 
eye open; it was impossible to close it while the snoring con¬ 
tinued. A dim light from the dying embers in the fire, en¬ 
abled me to perceive, in the course of time, that Yusef was 
getting restless ; the snoring gradually stopped ; the blankets 
began to drop off, and he sat up on his mattress and looked 
cautiously around. Satisfied that all was right, he crept to 
the door, fumbled at the bolt for some minutes, and eventu¬ 
ally drew it back, without making any more noise than a 
mouse would have made under the same circumstances. 
The difficulty was to get the door open; it was hung on 
wooden hinges, which, perhaps, had not been greased for 
some time. Yusef breathed hard a few moments, gathered 
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