ous of all conceivable occurrences,' replied
Besso, 'and yet it is about a person of whom you never heard, and whom
I never saw; and yet there are circumstances connected with him. Alas!
alas! you must know, my Eva, there is a young Englishman here, and a
young English lord, of one of their princely families----'

'Yes!' said Eva, in a subdued but earnest tone.

'He brought me a letter from the best and greatest of men,' said Besso,
with much emotion, 'to whom I, to whom we, owe everything: our fortunes,
our presence here, perhaps our lives. There was nothing which I was not
bound to do for him, which I was not ready and prepared to do. I ought
to have guarded over him; to have forced my services on his acceptance;
I blame myself now when it is too late. But he sent me his letter by
the Intendant of his household, whom I knew. I was fearful to obtrude
myself. I learnt he was fanatically Christian, and thought perhaps he
might shrink from my acquaintance.'

'And what has happened?' inquired Eva, with an agitation which proved
her sympathy with her father's sorrow.

'He left the city some days ago to visit Sinai; well armed and properly
escorted. He has been waylaid in the wilderness and captured after a
bloody struggle.'

'A bloody struggle?'

'Yes; they of course would gladly not have fought, but, though entrapped
into an ambush, the young Englishman would not yield, but fought with
desperation. His assailants have suffered considerably; his own
party comparatively little, for they were so placed; surrounded,
you understand, in a mountain defile, that they might have been all
massacred, but the fear of destroying their prize restrained at first
the marksmen on the heights; and, by a daring and violent charge,
the young Englishman and his followers forced the pass, but they were
overpowered by numbers.'

'And he wounded?'

'I hope not severely. But you have heard nothing. They have sent his
Intendant to Jerusalem with a guard of Arabs to bring back his ransom.
What do you think they want?'

Eva signified her inability to conjecture.

'Two millions of piastres!'

'Two millions of piastres! Did you say two? 'Tis a great sum; but we
might negotiate. They would accept less, perhaps much less, than two
millions of piastres.'

'If it were four millions of piastres, I must pay it,' said Besso. ''Tis
not the sum alone that so crosses me. The father of this young noble
is a great prince, and could doubtless pay, w