I can never betray him in whose
veins my own blood is flowing.' So saying, he led Alroy to his carpet.

'Eat,' David,' said Scherirah.

'I will eat bread,' answered Alroy.

'What! have you had so much meat lately that you will refuse this
delicate gazelle that I brought down this morning with my own lance?
'Tis food for a caliph.'

'I pray you give me bread.'

'Oh! bread if you like. But that a man should prefer bread to meat, and
such meat as this, 'tis miraculous.'

'A thousand thanks, good Scherirah; but with our people the flesh of the
gazelle is forbidden. It is unclean. Its foot is _cloven_.'

'I have heard of these things,' replied Scherirah, with a thoughtful
air. 'My mother was a Jewess, and my father was a Kourd. Whichever be
right, I hope to be saved.'

'There is but one God, and Mahomed is his prophet!' exclaimed Kisloch;
'though I drink wine. Your health, Hebrew.'

'I will join you,' said to the third robber. 'My father was a Guebre,
and sacrificed his property to his faith; and the consequence is, his
son has got neither.'

'As for me,' said a fourth robber, of very dark complexion and
singularly small bright eyes, 'I am an Indian, and I believe in the
great golden figure with carbuncle eyes, in the temple of Delhi.'

'I have no religion,' said a tall negro in a red turban, grinning with
his white teeth; 'they have none in my country; but if I had heard of
your God before, Calidas, I would have believed in him.'

'I almost wish I had been a Jew,' exclaimed Scherirah, musing. 'My
mother was a good woman.' 'The Jews are very rich,' said the third
robber. 'When you get to Jerusalem, David, you will see the Christians,'
continued Scherirah.

'The accursed Giaours,' exclaimed Kisloch, 'we are all against them.'

'With their white faces,' exclaimed the negro. 'And their blue eyes,'
said the Indian. 'What can you expect of men who live in a country
without a sun?' observed the Guebre.

Alroy awoke about two hours after midnight. His companions were in deep
slumber. The moon had set, the fire had died away, a few red embers
alone remaining; dark masses of shadow hung about the amphitheatre. He
arose and cautiously stepped over the sleeping bandits. He was not
in strictness a prisoner; but who could trust to the caprice of these
lawless men? To-morrow might find him their slave, or their companion in
some marauding expedition, which might make him almost retrace his steps
to the Caucasus, or to H