round his face, in imitation of the rays of the sun, and his whole appearance well befitted his savage and necromantic employment, and made her at once shudder and rejoice at the danger she had escaped by not having entered the tower. He was so fully occupied, that there was not much fear of his discovering her as she descended the hill, which she now prepared to do; but just as she was comforting herself with this thought, in leaning against the fractured wall, one of stones gave way and rolled into the building. The priest started up with the most ghastly looks of terror, and taking up his lamp and a vessel filled with blood, ran towards the door. Sephora stood, or rather trembled where she was, beneath the dark shadow of the mouldering tower. He appeared not to suspect any human agency, but waving his lamp, and stamping on the earth, he uttered many unintelligible words, and flung the blood around him. Sephora shuddered as she felt some of it fall on her throat.

When he had finished these incantations, he returned to his employment, and she was

most thankful to have escaped observation. She no sooner saw him seated again to the dissection of the hyena's head, than she once more prepared to descend the hill, and accomplished it this time, without any new alarm, though not without encountering many difficulties, from the occasional darkness and steepness of the way. However, she not only got down the hill, but found her road up the defile, and reached the fountain, where she eagerly quenched her thirst; and casting herself on the ground, felt her mind overcome with gratitude for all the dangers she had escaped, and filled with the sweetest confidence that her prayers would be heard, and that the morrow's sun would see her restored to her husband.

She was pouring out her very soul before God, half mentally, half articulately, when a hoarse, savage laugh, a rude grasp, an assurance that she was the very person they wanted, and an invitation to come along with them, seconded by a stout pull, stopped her devotions, and made her dumb and almost stupid with despair. Re

sistance would have been unavailing, even had she been capable of it, for it was three stout robbers who had assailed her. They had come to the fountain for water, and perhaps but for the sound of her voice might have gone away without perceiving her. Two of them took her by the hand and dragged her down the valley, but she was so stunned by this last misfortune, that she scarcely knew which way she went, or how far, till she was awakened to a sense of her situation by feeling one of the men loose his hold of her, and hearing the sound as of a stone door being lifted up. She could see nothing, for the moon was now set, and the heavy dew that was descending darkened all the air; but she imagined she was now going into the robber's cave, and made a fruitless effort to free herself from the man who held her. This had no effect but to make him retain her with a firmer grasp. His companions now called to him to come on, and he entered a hole in the rock, pulling his captive after him. As soon as they were in, he gave notice to the other

robbers, who immediately closed the door, and this they did so hastily that it caught the corner of Sephora's hyke, and dragged it off, togther with her burnoose. They crept some way through the rock, which issued again into the open air, and not into a cavern, as she had expected.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE cold dew which now visited her face, revived in some degree her some degree her spirits, her strength, and her confidence in heaven. She remembered her escape from the Arab's tent, and why not from the robber's den.

At the entrance of this den they were now arrived, and the thieves gave notice of their approach to those within by a shrill whistle, which was echoed by the surrounding rocks, and answered by the rolling away of a heavy stonę. The removal of this barrier disclosed her prison. It was a spacious and lofty cavern, whose height and depth the sight could not ascertain, though a blazing fire threw its light far and wide, and as an old man flung logs of wood on it, the flame and sparks mounted high, yet they showed nothing but as it were, an inverted abyss. To the right