shots flying wide, and whistling with a shrill hiss harmlessly
past; we reserved further fire, not wishing to kill, if we could manage
to cut our way through without bloodshed, and backed to the plane-trees,
where the horses were waiting. There was a moment's blind but breathless
struggle, swift and indistinct to remembrance, as a flash of lightning;
the Turks swarmed around us, while we beat them off, and hurled them
asunder somehow. Omar sprang like a rattlesnake on to his spoiler, his
yataghan circling viciously in the air, to crash down upon Galahad's
skull, who was encumbered by the clinging embrace of his stolen
Circassian. I straightened my left arm with a remnant of "science" that
savored more of old Cambridge than of Crimean custom; the Moslem went
down like an ox, and keeping the yelling pack at bay with the levelled
death-dealer, I threw myself into saddle just as Galahad flung himself
on his stallion, and the Syrians, fleet as Arab breeding could make
them, tore down the beach in the rich Eastern night, while the balls
shrieked through the air past our ears, and the shouts of our laughter,
with the salute of a ringing English cheer in victorious farewell,
answered the howls of our distant and baffled pursuers.

Sir Galahad's Raid was a triumph!

On we went through the hot fragrant air, through the silvery moonlight,
through the deep shade of cypress and pine woods; on we went through
gorge, and ravine, and defile, through stretches of sweet wild
lavender, of shining sands, of trampled rose-fields, with the
phosphor-lit sea gleaming beside us, and the Islam Feast of Bairam left
far distant behind. On and on--while the glorious night itself was
elixir, and one shouted to the starry silence Robert Browning's grand
challenge--

How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart, and the soul, and the senses, for ever in joy!

That ride was superb!

We never drew rein till some ten miles farther on, where we saw against
the clear skies the dark outline of the yacht with a blue light burning
at her mast-head, the signal selected; then Galahad checked the good
Syrian, who had proved pace as fleet as the "wild pigeon blue" is ever
vouched in the desert, and bent over his prize who, through that long
ride, had been held close to his breast, with her arms wound about him,
and the beautiful veiled face bowed on his heart. The moon was bright as
day, and he stooped his head to uplift the e