xpect us to adopt it until we know what particular brand of rot it is
that he wants us to believe. Tell him that if he will instruct us, we
are perfectly willing to listen to his teaching, and you can add that
any creed which turns out such beauties as him, and that other bounder
with the black beard, must claim the attention of every one."

With bows and suppliant sweepings of his hands the dragoman explained
that the Christians were already full of doubt, and that it needed but a
little more light of knowledge to guide them on to the path of Allah.
The two Emirs stroked their beards and gazed suspiciously at them.
Then Abderrahman spoke in his crisp, stern fashion to the dragoman, and
the two strode away together. An instant later the bugle rang out as a
signal to mount.

"What he says is this," Mansoor explained, as he rode in the middle of
the prisoners. "We shall reach the wells by mid-day, and there will be
a rest. His own Moolah, a very good and learned man, will come to give
you an hour of teaching. At the end of that time you will choose one
way or the other. When you have chosen, it will be decided whether you
are to go to Khartoum or to be put to death. That is his last word."

"They won't take ransom?"

"Wad Ibrahim would, but the Emir Abderrahman is a terrible man.
I advise you to give in to him."

"What have you done yourself? You are a Christian, too."

Mansoor blushed as deeply as his complexion would allow.

"I was yesterday morning. Perhaps I will be to-morrow morning. I serve
the Lord as long as what He ask seem reasonable; but this is very
otherwise."

He rode onwards amongst the guards with a freedom which showed that his
change of faith had put him upon a very different footing to the other
prisoners.

So they were to have a reprieve of a few hours, though they rode in that
dark shadow of death which was closing in upon them. What is there in
life that we should cling to it so? It is not the pleasures, for those
whose hours are one long pain shrink away screaming when they see
merciful Death holding his soothing arms out for them. It is not the
associations, for we will change all of them before we walk of our own
free-wills down that broad road which every son and daughter of man must
tread. Is it the fear of losing the I, that dear, intimate I, which we
think we know so well, although it is eternally doing things which
surprise us? Is it that which makes the deliberate su