ced guard before his charge, reconnoitring from sandhill to
sandhill, often creeping up and lying on his breast, so as not to be
visible to the enemy, congratulated Tancred that all imminent danger was
past.

'Not that I am afraid of them,' said Hassan, proudly; 'but we must kill
them or they will kill us.' Hassan, though Sheikh of his own immediate
family and followers, was dependent on the great Sheikh of the Jellaheen
tribe, and was bound to obey his commands in case the complete clan were
summoned to congregate in any particular part of the desert.

[Illustration: page2-083]

On the morrow they commenced their passage of the mountains, and, after
clearing several ranges found themselves two hours after noon in a
defile so strangely beautiful that to behold it would alone have
repaid all the exertions and perils of the expedition. It was formed
by precipitous rocks of a picturesque shape and of great height, and of
colours so brilliant and so blended that to imagine them you must fancy
the richest sunset you have ever witnessed, and that would be inferior,
from the inevitable defect of its fleeting character. Here the tints,
sometimes vivid, sometimes shadowed down, were always equally fair:
light blue heights, streaked, perhaps, with scarlet and shaded off
to lilac or purple; a cleft of bright orange; a broad peach-coloured
expanse, veined in delicate circles and wavy lines of exquisite grace;
sometimes yellow and purple stripes; sometimes an isolated steep of
every hue flaming in the sun, and then, like a young queen on a gorgeous
throne, from a vast rock of crimson, and gold rose a milk-white summit.
The frequent fissures of this defile were filled with rich woods of
oleander and shrubs of every shade of green, from which rose acacia, and
other trees unknown to Tancred. Over all this was a deep and cloudless
sky, and through it a path winding amid a natural shrubbery, which
princes would have built colossal conservatories to preserve.

''Tis a scene of enchantment that has risen to mock us in the middle of
the desert,' exclaimed the enraptured pilgrim; 'surely it must vanish
even as we gaze!'

About half-way up the defile, when they had traversed it for about a
quarter of an hour, Sheikh Hassan suddenly galloped forward and hurled
his spear with great force at an isolated crag, the base of which
was covered with oleanders, and then looking back he shouted to his
companions. Tancred and the foremost hurried up