breeze laden with sweet odours which evidently had their origin
in some contiguous garden. A hilly and heavily-wooded landscape was
visible through the window and beyond all was a sky glowing with the
thousand evanescent beauties of a gorgeous sunset.

I lay for some time enjoying the magnificent spectacle before me, and
wondering in a feeble sort of way how much of my present and recent
experiences was real, and how much was due to the delirium through which
I was conscious of having passed. Were my present surroundings, for
instance, real, or was I simply dreaming a vivid dream? And had I
really been present in the body at that bandit camp, or was it only
fancy? The present appeared to be a waking reality, and so had the
other, yet both experiences seemed so strange that I knew not what to
think.

Upon one point, however, I did not long remain in doubt; whatever else
might be fancy, the sensation of hunger soon forced itself upon my
notice as a most prosaic and undeniable fact, and I very speedily
decided that I ought to make somebody acquainted with it.

I glanced round the room in quest of a hand-bell or some other means of
attracting that somebody's attention, and, seeing nothing of the kind,
made a move with the intention of getting out of bed to reconnoitre, but
fell back, weak and helpless as an infant. My movement, however, was
not without result, for there was a sudden stir behind the curtains; a
black-eyed, dark-skinned damsel emerged from her place of concealment,
looked in upon me, uttered an ejaculation in what I imagined to be
Italian, and forthwith beat a hasty retreat, notwithstanding my feeble
hail for her to remain.

She returned, however, in two or three minutes, accompanied by, without
exception, the most lovely being it has ever been my happy lot to
behold. It was a young girl in her thirteenth year, as I subsequently
learned, though I should have supposed her to be quite sixteen.

She was of about medium height, and her exquisite figure was already
assuming the rounded graces of budding womanhood. Her skin was a clear
pale olive with just the faintest and most delicate tinge of colour in
the velvety cheek; her face was a perfect oval, and her small
exquisitely poised head was covered with a wealth of soft, silky,
chestnut hair, so dark as to appear black in the shade, but when a ray
of light fell upon it, the rippling ringlets revealed the full beauty of
their deep rich colour. The ey