st, the child had always dwelt in an imaginary world, a curious
compound of the Lives of the Saints and of Telemaque. Martyrs and heroes
alike had been shipwrecked, taken captive, and tormented; and there was a
certain sense of realised day-dream about her, as if she had become one
of the number and must act up to her part. She asked Hebert if there
were a Sainte Estelle, what was the day of the month, and if she should
be placed in the Calendar if she never complained, do what these
barbarians might to her. She hoped she should hold out, for she would
like to be able to help all whom she loved, poor papa and all. But it
was hard that mamma, who was so good, could not be a martyr too; but she
was a saint in Paradise all the same, and thus Estelle made her little
prayer in hope. There was no conceit or over confidence in the tone,
though of course the poor child little knew what she was ready to accept;
but it was a spark of the martyr's trust that gleamed in her eye, and
gave her a sense of exaltation that took off the sharpest edge of grief
and fear.

By this time, however, the animals were stirring, and with them the human
beings who had lain down in their clothes. Peace was over; the Abbe
awoke, and began to call for Laurent and his clothes and his beads; but
this aroused the master of the house, who started up, and threatening
with a huge stick, roared at him what must have been orders to be quiet.

Estelle indignantly flew between and cried, 'You shall not hurt my
uncle.'

The commanding gesture spoke for itself; and, besides, poor Phelim
cowered behind her with an air that caused a word and sign to pass round,
which the captives found was equivalent to innocent or imbecile; and the
Mohammedan respect and tenderness for the demented spared him all further
violence or molestation, except that he was lost and miserable without
the attentions of his foster-brother; and indeed the shocks he had
undergone seemed to have mobbed him of much of the small degree of sense
he had once possessed.

Coming into the space before the doorway, Estelle found herself the
object of universal gaze and astonishment, as her long fair hair gleamed
in the sunshine, every one coming to touch it, and even pull it to see if
it was real. She was a good deal frightened, but too high-spirited to
show it more than she could help, as the dark-skinned, bearded men
crowded round with cries of wonder. The other two prisoners likewise
appe