Suddenly he turned, dashed to a tripod of porphyry, and seizing a rosary of jewels, pressed it to his lips.

"The spirit of my dreams, she comes at last, the form for which I have sighed and wept, the form which rose upon my radiant vision when I shut my eyes against the jarring shadows of this gloomy world.

"Schirene? Schirene! here in this solitude I pour to thee the passion long stored up-the passion of my life, no common life, a life full of deep feeling and creative thought. Oh! beautiful, oh, more than beautiful, for thou to me art as a dream unbroken-why art thou not mine, why lose a moment in our glorious lives, and baulk our destiny of half its bliss ?

"Fool, fool, hast thou forgotten? The rapture of a prisoner in his cell, whose wild fancy for a moment belies his fetters! The daughter of the caliph and a-Jew!

"Give me my father's sceptre!

"A plague on talismans! Oh! I need no inspiration but her memory, no magic but her name. By heavens, I'll enter this glorious city a conqueror, or I'll die.

Why what is life, for meditation mingles ever with my passion-why, what is life! Throw accidents to the dogs, and tear off the painted mask of false society! Here am I a hero; with a mind that can devise all things, and a heart of superhuman daring, with youth, with vigour, with a glorious lineage, with a form that has made full many a lovely maiden of our tribe droop her fair head by Hamadan's sweet fount, and I am-nothing. "Out on society; 'twas not made for me. form my own, and be the deity I sometimes feel. "We make our fortunes and we call them fate.

I'll

Thou saidst well, Honain. Most subtle Sadducee! The saintly blood flowed in my fathers' veins, and they did nothing; but I have an arm formed to wield a sceptre, and I will win one. "I cannot doubt my triumph.

Triumph is a part of my existence. I am born for glory, as a tree is born to bear its fruit, or to expand its flowers. The deed is done. 'Tis thought of, and 'tis done. I'll confront the greatest of my diademed ancestors, and in his tomb. Mighty Solomon! he wedded Pharaoh's daughter. Hah! what a future dawns upon my hope. An omen, a choice omen!

"Heaven and earth are mingling to form my fortunes. My mournful youth I have so often cursed, I hail thee-thou wert a glorious preparation; and when, feeling no sympathy with the life around me, I deemed myself a fool, I find I was a most peculiar being. By heavens, I am joyful; for the first time in my life I am joyful. I could laugh, and fight, and drink. I am new-born; I am another being; I am mad!

"O! Time, great Time, the world belies thy fame. It calls thee swift. Methinks thou art wondrous slow. Fly on, great Time, and on thy coming wings bear me my sceptre!

All is to be. It is a lowering thought. My fancy, like a bright and wearied bird, will sometimes flag and fall, and then I am lost. The young king of Karasmé, a youthful hero! Would he had been Alschiroch! My heart is sick even at the very name. Alas! my trials have not yet begun. Jabaster warned me : good, sincere Jabaster! talisman presses on my frantic heart, and seems to warn me. I am in danger. Braggart to stand here, filling the careless air with idle words, while all is unaccomplished. I grow dull. The young king

His

of Karasmé! Why, what am I compared to this same prince? Nothing, but in my thoughts. In the full bazaar, they would not deem me worthy even to hold his stirrup or his slipper-Oh! this contest, this constant, bitter, never-ending contest between my fortune and my fancy! Why do I exist? or, if existing, why am I not recognized as 'I would be?

"Sweet voice, that in Jabaster's distant cave descended from thy holy home above, and whispered consolation, breathe again! Again breathe thy still summons to my lonely ear, and chase away the thoughts that hover round me. Thoughts dark and doubtful, like fell birds of prey hovering around an expected hero's fall, and gloating on their triumph o'er the brave. There is something fatal in these crowded cities. Faith flourishes in solitude."

He threw himself upon the couch, and, leaning down his head, seemed lost in meditation. He started up, and, seizing his tablets, wrote upon them these words:

"Honain, I have been the whole night like David in the wilderness of Ziph; but, by the aid of the Lord, I have conquered. I fly from this dangerous city upon his business, which I have too much neglected. Attempt not to discover me, and accept my gratitude."

PART VI.

I.

A SCORCHING Sun, a blue and burning sky, on every side lofty ranges of black and barren mountains, dark ravines, deep caverns, unfathomable gorges! A solitary being moved in the distance. Faint and toiling, a pilgrim slowly clambered up the steep and stony track.

The sultry hours moved on, the pilgrim at length gained the summit of the mountain, a small and rugged table land strewn with huge masses of loose and heated rock. All around was desolation: no spring, no herbage; the bird and the insect were alike mute. Yet still it was the summit: no loftier peaks frowned in the distance; the pilgrim stopped, and breathed with more facility, and a faint smile played over his worn and solemn countenance.

He rested a few minutes, he took from his wallet some locusts and wild honey, and a small skin of water. His meal was short as well as simple. An ardent desire to reach his place of destination before night-fall urged him to proceed. He soon passed over the table-land, and commenced the descent of the mountain. A straggling olive-tree occasionally appeared, and then a group, and soon the groups swell into a grove. His way wound

through the grateful and unaccustomed shade. He emerged from the grove, and found that he had proceeded down more than half the side of the mountain. It ended precipitously in a very dark and narrow ravine, formed on the side by an opposite mountain, the lofty steep of which was crested by a city gently rising on a very gradual slope.

Nothing could be conceived more barren, wild and terrible, than the surrounding scenery, unillumined by a single trace of culture. The city stood like the last gladiator in an amphitheatre of desolation.

It was surrounded by a lofty turretted wall, of an architecture to which the pilgrim was unaccustomed: gates with drawbridge and portcullis, square towers, and loop-holes for the archer. Sentinels, clothed in steel, and shining in the sunset, paced, at regular intervals, the cautious wall, and on a lofty tower a standard waved, a snowy standard, with a red, red cross!

The prince of the captivity at length beheld the lost capital of his fathers(36).

II.

A few months back and such a spectacle would have called forth all the latent passion of Alroy; but time and suffering, and sharp experience, had already somewhat curbed the fiery spirit of the Hebrew prince. He gazed upon Jerusalem; he beheld the city of David garrisoned by the puissant warriors of Christendom, and threatened by the innumerable armies of the crescent. The two great divisions of the world seemed contending for a prize, which he, a lonely wanderer, had crossed the desert to rescue. If his faith restrained him from doubting the pos