rought wrinkles on his
brow, and added lines of care to a comely face.

A slave toiling in an Eastern garden--taskmasters set over him with
loaded whips--alas! can this be our Hubert?

Indeed it is.

The story told by the pilgrim was partly true. The Fleur de Lys had
been wrecked on the coast of Sicily, but Hubert and two or three
others escaped in an open boat. They were a night and day on the
deep, when a vessel bound for Antioch hove in sight, and made out
their signals of distress. They were taken on board, and arrived at
Antioch duly, whence Hubert despatched a letter to his friends at
Walderne (which never arrived); and then in the exquisite beauty of
the Eastern summer--"when the flowers appear on the earth, the time
of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in the land; when the fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell"--in all
this beauty Hubert de Walderne and the three surviving members of
his party set out to traverse the mountainous districts of Lebanon
on their way to Jerusalem.

They engaged a guide, who feigned himself a Christian, and, in
company with other pilgrims, all of course armed, travelled through
the wondrous country beneath "The hill of Hermon" on their road
southward. Near the sources of the Jordan, while yet amongst the
cedars of Lebanon, their guide led them into an ambush; and after a
desperate but unavailing resistance, they were all either slain or
taken prisoners. Hubert, his sword broken in the struggle, was made
captive, after doing all that valour could do, and bound. He saw
his faithful squire lying dead on the field, and the other two
survivors of the party which had set out in such high hope from
Walderne, captives like himself.

Resistance was impossible. Their captors would have released them
for ransom; but who was near to redeem them? So they were taken to
Damascus, and, in the absence of such ransom, were exposed in the
slave market. Oh, what degradation for the young knight! Hubert
prayed for death, but it never came. Death flies the miserable, and
seeks the happy who cling to life.

An old man with a flowing beard, and of great austerity of manner,
had come to inspect the slaves. He selected only the young and
comely, and Hubert had the misfortune to be one so distinguished.
All men bowed before the potentate, whoever he was, and Hubert saw
that he had become the property of "a prince