d to his subsequent seclusion was
Dr. Lloyd, who was then without practice, and whom he had employed as an
assistant in certain chemical experiments.

Here a gentleman struck into the conversation. He was a stranger to
me and to L----, a visitor to one of the dwellers on the Hill, who had
asked leave to present him to its queen as a great traveller and an
accomplished antiquary.

Said this gentleman: "Sir Philip Derval? I know him. I met him in the
East. He was then still, I believe, very fond of chemical science; a
clever, odd, philanthropical man; had studied medicine, or at least
practised it; was said to have made many marvellous cures. I became
acquainted with him in Aleppo. He had come to that town, not much
frequented by English travellers, in order to inquire into the murder of
two men, of whom one was his friend and the other his countryman."

"This is interesting," said Mrs. Poyntz, dryly. "We who live on this
innocent Hill all love stories of crime; murder is the pleasantest
subject you could have hit on. Pray give us the details."

"So encouraged," said the traveller, good-humouredly, "I will not
hesitate to communicate the little I know. In Aleppo there had lived for
some years a man who was held by the natives in great reverence. He had
the reputation of extraordinary wisdom, but was difficult of access;
the lively imagination of the Orientals invested his character with
the fascinations of fable,--in short, Haroun of Aleppo was popularly
considered a magician. Wild stories were told of his powers, of his
preternatural age, of his hoarded treasures. Apart from such disputable
titles to homage, there seemed no question, from all I heard, that his
learning was considerable, his charities extensive, his manner of life
irreproachably ascetic. He appears to have resembled those Arabian sages
of the Gothic age to whom modern science is largely indebted,--a mystic
enthusiast, but an earnest scholar. A wealthy and singular Englishman,
long resident in another part of the East, afflicted by some languishing
disease, took a journey to Aleppo to consult this sage, who, among
his other acquirements, was held to have discovered rare secrets in
medicine,--his countrymen said in 'charms.' One morning, not long after
the Englishman's arrival, Haroun was found dead in his bed, apparently
strangled, and the Englishman, who lodged in another part of the town,
had disappeared; but some of his clothes, and a crutch on wh