n were it
assigned as a reward for the capture of Tunis. For who was the first on
the height and within the city?" "That was Don Fadrique Mendez," said
Heimbert, taking the speaker by the hand and leading him before the
general. "If I now for his sake must forfeit my promised reward, I must
patiently submit; for he has rendered better service than I have done to
the emperor and the army."

"Neither of you shall forfeit his reward," said the great Alba. "Each
has permission from this moment to seek the maiden in whatever way it
seems to him most advisable."

And swift as lightning the two young captains quitted the circle of
officers in opposite directions.

CHAPTER IX.

A sea of sand, stretching out in the distant horizon, without one object
to mark its extensive surface, white and desolate in its vastness--such
is the scene which proclaims the fearful desert of Sahara to the eye of
the wanderer who has lost himself in these frightful regions. In this
also it resembles the sea, that it casts up waves, and often a misty
vapor bangs over its surface. But there is not the soft play of waves
which unite all the coasts of the earth; each wave as it rolls in
bringing a message from the remotest and fairest island kingdoms, and
again rolling back as it were with an answer, in a sort of love-flowing
dance. No; there is here only the melancholy sporting of the hot wind
with the faithless dust which ever falls back again into its joyless
basin, and never reaches the rest of the solid land with its happy human
dwellings. There is here none of the sweet cool sea-breeze in which
kindly fairies seem carrying on their graceful sport, forming blooming
gardens and pillared palaces--there is only a suffocating vapor,
rebelliously given back to the glowing sun from the unfruitful sands.

Hither the two youths arrived at the same time, and paused, gazing with
dismay at the pathless chaos before them. Zelinda's track, which was not
easily hidden or lost, had hitherto obliged them almost always to remain
together, dissatisfied as Fadrique was at the circumstance, and angry as
were the glances he cast at his unwelcome companion. Each had hoped to
overtake Zelinda before she had reached the desert, feeling how almost
impossible it would be to find her once she had entered it. That hope
was now at an end; and although in answer to the inquiries they made in
the Barbary villages on the frontier, they heard that a wanderer going