cination are said to undergo. Whatever sensations
they occasioned, men shrank from renewing them, and the frankest and
boldest of the crew shunned occasions for addressing him. Stranger
still, this feeling, instead of wearing off by the close companionship
of our little bark, seemed to deepen and strengthen, until at length,
except myself, no one spoke to him who could avoid it. Even the
captain, when circumstances allowed him a choice, always directed
his orders to another, though this man's duties were performed
with the quiet promptness of a machine. If he was conscious of
anything peculiar in the behavior of his companions toward him,
he betrayed no indication of it. Such he was who stood listening,
with an appearance of interest unusual in him, to our otherwise
inconsequent chat.

"You are bidding a very silent adieu to the Genius of the East,"
I said.

"Yes," Fred answered, "it's her first actual revelation to me, but
it's a glorious one."

"Let those who love to decipher illegible inscriptions, to contemplate
a throttled centaur on a dilapidated frieze, or a carved acanthus
on a fallen capital, grope over the Acropolis and invoke Athenian
Pallas," said Mike; "but for me these painted seraglios and terraced,
bower-canopied gardens, vocal with nightingales and seeming to
impregnate the very air with the pleasures of desire, justify the
decision of Paris. Hurrah for Asiatic Venus!"

"You are no true Christian knight," I said. "Your Rinaldos and
Sir Guyons always waste your gardens of voluptuous delight, and
wipe out their abominations."

"Yes," he retorted, "all but the abomination of desolation."

"But do you consider," said Fred, "how many sweet birds may be
looking out through the bars of those bright lattice cages even
now, who can follow neither their hearts' desires nor their souls'
aspirations, but whom fate has degraded to be the slaves of some
miserable old Blue Beard?"

"Why don't you sail in and rescue some of them?" said Mike mockingly.
"Tell the old tyrant to his cerulean beard that he has too many
strings to his bow, and he will undoubtedly spare a bow-string to
twine around your manly neck. But I guess you had better, after
all, leave the Fatimas to their fate. The barriers that fence them
in from their hearts' desires and souls' aspirations here are not
more real, if more palpable, than those that guard them in our
land of boasted freedom; neither are they altogether secure from
sale and b