ked again, Where, then, is the good King Maximilianus? The citizen
moved him apart, as one who is afraid, and said, Verily these men be mad,
and dream dreams, else would they know that the King whereof they speak
is dead above two hundred years agone.

Then the scales fell from the eyes of the Seven, and one said, Alas, that
we drank of the curious liquors. They have made us weary, and in
dreamless sleep these two long centuries have we lain. Our homes are
desolate, our friends are dead. Behold, the jig is up--let us die. And
that same day went they forth and laid them down and died. And in that
self-same day, likewise, the Seven-up did cease in Ephesus, for that the
Seven that were up were down again, and departed and dead withal. And
the names that be upon their tombs, even unto this time, are Johannes
Smithianus, Trumps, Gift, High, and Low, Jack, and The Game. And with
the sleepers lie also the bottles wherein were once the curious liquors:
and upon them is writ, in ancient letters, such words as these--Dames of
heathen gods of olden time, perchance: Rumpunch, Jinsling, Egnog.

Such is the story of the Seven Sleepers, (with slight variations,) and I
know it is true, because I have seen the cave myself.

Really, so firm a faith had the ancients this legend, that as late as
eight or nine hundred years ago, learned travelers held it in
superstitious fear. Two of them record that they ventured into it, but
ran quickly out again, not daring to tarry lest they should fall asleep
and outlive their great grand-children a century or so. Even at this day
the ignorant denizens of the neighboring country prefer not to sleep in
it.

CHAPTER XLI.

When I last made a memorandum, we were at Ephesus. We are in Syria, now,
encamped in the mountains of Lebanon. The interregnum has been long,
both as to time and distance. We brought not a relic from Ephesus!
After gathering up fragments of sculptured marbles and breaking ornaments
from the interior work of the Mosques; and after bringing them at a cost
of infinite trouble and fatigue, five miles on muleback to the railway
depot, a government officer compelled all who had such things to
disgorge! He had an order from Constantinople to look out for our party,
and see that we carried nothing off. It was a wise, a just, and a
well-deserved rebuke, but it created a sensation. I never resist a
temptation to plunder a stranger's premises without feeling insufferably