RETURN TO CAIRO. 115 is most probable that they were killed, as I proceeded quietly on my way, and reached my own house safe and sound before sunrise. "I assure you, however, that I hastened to quit Cairo as soon as possible, as I knew not what might be the result of my adventure, especially as I had killed a eunuch. But it was passed over in silence, for people in Egypt are not so particular when a murder is committed as in Europe. The East is the land of silence as it is also of mystery. "Soon afterwards I proceeded on my journey to Jerusalem, and on my return to Cairo I called upon my charming Levantine friend, when she informed me that during my pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, H. H. the Grand Princess had invited her to see her; on which occasion she had treated her most graciously, and made numerous enquiries about me, 'her amiable friend,' as Her Highness termed me. The Grand Princess, who had no wish that the adventures in the Harem and the Kiosk should be bruited about, very quietly pocketed the trick which had been played her, and nothing more was said about it." hardly gone thirty steps before I found the gate which had been anxiously sought for. "Scarcely, however, had I put the key into the lock, when three tall black eunuchs, who had concealed themselves behind the opposite door, and who had given chase after me, came suddenly upon me from different directions. They were the same three eunuchs whom I had seen mounting guard at the door to which the defunct negro was proceeding. The first one who approached me brandished a tremendous large sabre, a blow from which would have cleft my body in twain, but the first ball from my revolver laid him prostrate on the ground. It had, however, only broken his arm, but that was quite enough for the moment, as it was his right arm, and his sabre fell from it. That slight chastisement for his insolence produced a most salutary effect upon his companions, who thought that they would receive a similar correction, as they were also armed with formidable scimitars. As they drew back I passed through the door, and in so doing fired at them two farewell shots, without stopping to see what mischief I had done. But it RETURN TO CATEC is most probable that there - own house safe and som was passed over de ir a Then I pondered in my own mind, how many lovers, in that apartment in which I then stood, had paid the penalty of their audacity by being plunged into the Nile, or allured to meet a watery grave, perhaps beneath those very windows from which I then beheld the lovely moon shining so brightly, and had thus been sent to their "last account with all their imperfections on their head!" It was natural that my imagination should dwell upon such thoughts; not because the old Frenchwoman had related the above incidents to me, on whose veracity I might have placed some doubt, had I not heard the ladies of the Harem and slaves repeat to me many a time and oft similar histories not only of the Grand Princess, but of other Egyptian Harem celebrities, that had made 66 "My hair stand an end, like quills upon the fretful porcupine." which fully proved to me what a mysterious abode an Harem is. A MYSTERIOUS ABODE. 117 CHAPTER V. So many scenes of Egyptian aggrandizement, policy, and crime have been carried on in that palace, for "Whoever enters there, beholds strange scenes of Harem life." that I could almost fancy I beheld that lovely, fascinating, yet most cruel and relentless. Princess, sitting on the divan beside me on that melancholy day, when this "Abode of Bliss" of the regenerator of Egypt was turned into a house of mourning, when the King of Terrors struck his unerring dart into the heart of that wonderful Turk, Mahomet Ali; and yet I had been told, when the sad intelligence reached her, of the demise of the idol of that but naturally cruel heart,— |