oles, by some caprice of compassion, with their own sick and dying.
Neither was it constraint that held him beneath the roof of Laski, or
in the nominal condition of a slave, for at all times escape would
have been easy to him. It was either attachment to those who lived
beneath that roof, or an equal indifference to every thing without or
beyond it, that retained him there.

To propose to Hakem some bold and perilous enterprise, was to offer
him one of the few pleasures to which he was open. He accepted,
therefore, of the strange commission now entrusted to him without
hesitation; stipulating, only, that he might take from the stables of
the king a horse which was much celebrated for its amazing power and
fleetness.

Mounted upon this incomparable steed, he pursued his way to the camp
of the Duke of Lithuania. On his journey he had made trial of its
speed, and yet had husbanded its strength. Arrived at the plain where
the insurgent army was encamped, he there lay in ambush for some time,
till he saw where the duke, passing his troops in review, rode
somewhat in advance of what in the language of modern warfare we
should call his staff. Hakem set spurs to his horse, and rushed upon
him with the velocity of lightning, his drawn cimeter flashing in the
sun, and his loud cry of defiance calling the duke to his defence.
Thus challenged, he put his lance in rest to meet his furious
assailant. But the thrust of the lance was avoided, and the next
moment the head of the duke was seen to roll upon the field. The Arab
wheeled round, and, without quitting his steed, picked up the severed
head, placed it on his saddle-bows, and darted off fleeter than the
wind. A cry of horror and a shout of pursuit arose from the whole
army, who were spectators of this scene. Every horse was in motion.
But where the contest is one of speed, of what avail are numbers? In
the whole camp there was not a steed which could compete with that on
which the solitary fugitive was mounted, and was already seen scouring
the plain at a distance. As he fled, a paper was observed to fall from
his hands, which the wind bore amongst his innumerable pursuers; it
was the judicial warrant that had been thus strangely executed.

Meanwhile, at the palace, the royal mind of Sigismund was not a little
disquieted and alarmed by this sudden rebellion of the powerful Duke
of Lithuania. That alarm would not have been diminished had he been
aware that this open rebellion