When the vessel returned, Mr. W. received this account from the
officers of the ship. They said that his friend made a great pet of
the cat, and fed her always at his own meal times. He taught her to
stand on her hind legs and ask for her food; he made her jump over a
stick for his amusement; in short, he taught her to perform a great
many amusing tricks. The officers and men were all very fond of poor
little puss.

At length, the young man became very ill. The cat would not leave
him night or day. At last, one day, she left the cabin and began to
run about the ship, making the most terrible mewing. The sailors
offered her food; she refused it. She would not be comforted.
Finally, her cries turned into a complete howl. She manifested the
greatest suffering, and, at last, she ran off to the end of the
bowsprit and leaped into the sea. Just at the moment that the poor
little faithful, loving cat was swallowed up by the waves, her human
friend breathed his last, and they both entered the invisible land
together.

Such an extraordinary event, and the gloom which a death at sea
always casts over a ship's company, both together made the sailors
even more than usually superstitious. They all declared that, every
night at that same hour when the sick man died, a white cat was seen
leaping into the ocean. The white crests of the breaking waves might
easily thus appear to an ignorant person who lives, as a sailor
does, in the midst of the wonders and sublime scenes which the ocean
presents, in the awful terrors of its storms, or the serene glory of
its quiet hours. But the love of the poor dumb animal for its
master--that was a beautiful reality.

I have a story now for you, Frank, about a horse, as I know you are
particularly fond of horses. An Arab chief with his tribe had
attacked in the night a caravan, and had plundered it; when loaded
with their spoil, however, the robbers were overtaken on their
return by some horsemen of the Pacha of Acre, who killed several,
and bound the remainder with cords. The horsemen brought one of the
prisoners, named Abou el Mavek, to Acre, and laid him, bound hand
and foot, wounded as he was, at the entrance to their tent. As they
slept during the night, the Arab, kept awake by the pain of his
wounds, heard his horse's neigh at a distance, and being desirous to
stroke, for the last time, the companion of his life, he dragged
himself, bound as he was, to the horse which was picketed at a