rden, sink to the bottom. He once
attacked a small town on the Persian Gulf. In this town lived one Abder
Russel, a personal friend of the narrator, who related the visit of the
pirates to his dwelling. Seized with a violent illness, he was stretched
on a pallet spread on a floor of his apartment; his wife, to whom he was
devotedly attached, was attending him, his head placed in her lap. A
violent noise arose below--the door was heavily assailed--it yielded--a
sharp conflict took place--shouting and a rushing on the stair-case was
heard, and the pirates were in the apartment. "I read their purpose,"
said Abder to me, "In their looks; but I was bed-ridden, and could not
raise a finger to save her for whose life I would gladly have forfeited
my own, Ramah, the pirate captain, approached her. Entreaties for life
were unavailing; yet for an instant her extreme beauty arrested his arm,
but it was only for an instant. His dagger again gleamed on high, and
she sank a bleeding victim beside me. Cold and apparently inanimate as I
was, I nevertheless felt her warm blood flowing past me, and with her
life it ebbed rapidly away. My eyes must have been fixed with the vacant
look of death: I even felt unmoved as he bent down beside me, and, with
spider-like fingers, stripped the jewels from my hand--the touch of that
villain who had deprived me of all which in life I valued. At length, a
happy insensibility stole over me. How long I remained in this condition
I know not; but when I recovered my senses, fever had left me--cool
blood again traversed my veins. Beside me was a faithful slave, who was
engaged bathing my temples. He had escaped the slaughter by secreting
himself while the murderers remained in the house."

Ramah, although a man of few words with his crew, was nevertheless very
communicative to our officers, whenever he fell in with them. According
to his own account, he managed them by never permitting any
familiarities, nor communicating big plans, and by an impartial
distribution of plunder; but the grand secret, he knew full well, was in
his utter contempt of danger, and that terrible, untaught eloquence, at
the hour of need, where time is brief, and sentences must be condensed
into words, which marked his career. Success crowned all his exploits;
he made war, and levied contributions on whom he pleased. Several times
he kept important sea-port towns in a state of blockade, and his
appearance was every where feared and d