t they traversed, to refresh
travellers with their milk, all fled at the sight of the hideous animal
and his strange riders. As to Carathis, she needed no common aliment,
for her invention had previously furnished her with an opiate to stay her
stomach, some of which she imparted to her mutes.

At the fall of night Alboufaki, making a sudden stop, stamped with his
foot, which to Carathis, who understood his paces, was a certain
indication that she was near the confines of some cemetery. The moon
shed a bright light on the spot, which served to discover a long wall,
with a large door in it standing ajar, and so high that Alboufaki might
easily enter. The miserable guides, who perceived their end approaching,
humbly implored Carathis, as she had now so good an opportunity, to inter
them, and immediately gave up the ghost. Nerkes and Cafour, whose wit
was of a style peculiar to themselves, were by no means parsimonious of
it on the folly of these poor people, nor could anything have been found
more suited to their tastes than the site of the burying-ground, and the
sepulchres which its precincts contained; there were at least two
thousand of them on the declivity of a hill: some in the form of
pyramids, others like columns, and, in short, the variety of their shapes
was endless. Carathis was too much immersed in her sublime
contemplations to stop at the view, charming as it appeared in her eyes;
pondering the advantages that might accrue from her present situation,
she could not forbear to exclaim:

"So beautiful a cemetery must be haunted by Gouls! and they want not for
intelligence; having heedlessly suffered my guides to expire, I will
apply for directions to them, and as an inducement will invite them to
regale on these fresh corpses."

After this short soliloquy she beckoned to Nerkes and Cafour, and made
signs with her fingers, as much as to say, "Go, knock against the sides
of the tombs, and strike up your delightful warblings, that are so like
to those of the guests whose company I wish to obtain."

The negresses, full of joy at the behests of their mistress, and
promising themselves much pleasure from the society of the Gouls, went
with an air of conquest, and began their knockings at the tombs; as their
strokes were repeated a hollow noise was heard in the earth, the surface
hove up into heaps, and the Gouls on all sides protruded their noses, to
inhale the effluvia which the carcases of the wood-men bega