u propose to do?" asked Mr Burne.

"What can I do, excellency, but try to keep you out of danger?"

"Yes, but how?"

"We must stay here."

"Stay here? when that village is so near at hand?"

Yussuf paused for a few minutes and then said slowly, as if the question
had just been asked:

"How do we know that the village is near at hand?"

"Ah!" ejaculated the professor, startled by the man's tone.

"It was not more than two of your English miles from here, excellency,
when we left the place this morning, but with such a shock there may be
only ruins from which the people who were spared have fled."

"How horrible!" exclaimed Lawrence.

"Let us hope that I am wrong, effendi," said Yussuf hastily. "I only
speak."

"But we cannot stay here for the night," said Mr Burne impatiently.

"Excellency, we must stay here," said the Turk firmly. "I am your
guide, and where I know the land I will lead you. I knew this country
this morning, but how can I know it now? Great chasms may lie between
us and the village--deep rifts, into which in the dust and darkness we
may walk. You know what vast gorges and valleys lie between the hills."

"Yes," replied Mr Preston.

"Some of these have been worn down by the torrents and streams from the
mountains, others have been made in a moment by such shocks as these. I
would gladly say, `come on; I will lead you back to the head-man's
house,' but, excellencies, I do not dare."

"He is quite right, Burne," said the professor gravely.

"Oh, yes, confound him: he always is right," cried Mr Burne. "I wish
sometimes he were not. Fancy camping out here for the night in this
horrible dust and with the air growing cold. It will be icy here by and
by."

"Yes, excellency, it will be cold. We are high up, and the snow
mountains are not far away."

"We must make the best of it, Lawrence, my boy," said the professor
cheerily. "Then I suppose the next thing is to select a camp. But,
Yussuf, this is rather risky. What about the asps?"

"And the ants," cried Mr Burne with a groan. "I can't sleep with such
bed-fellows as these."

"And the djins and evil spirits," cried Lawrence.

"Ah, I don't think they will hurt us much, my boy," said the professor.

"And there is one comfort," added Mr Burne; "we have left the cemetery
behind. I do protest against camping there."

"A cemetery of two thousand years ago," said the professor quietly.
"Ah, Burne, we need not make that an obje