, it is
to be feared, is sadly unfurnished. I never could rise to that
sublimated self-sufficiency of intellect that I could consign any
fellow-creature to everlasting pains for the audacity of differing in
dogma with myself. I have met good and bad of every creed, Mahometans I
could respect--whose word was their bond--and so-called Christians and
Christian ministers with a most uncharitable spiritual pride, whom I
could not respect. The liver of the persecutor was denied me. Were the
fires of Smithfield to be rekindled, my prayers would be sent up for the
floods of Heaven to quench them, and for the lightnings of Heaven to
annihilate the fiends who had piled the faggots.

"By-the-bye," said the Shereefa, "do you know any of those people who
write for the papers in London?"

I admitted that I had that misfortune.

"Some of them are fools as well as cowards," she went on. "They have
written articles about me full of ignorance and malice. Have they no
consideration for the feelings of others?"

"I am afraid, your Highness, some of them are more brilliant than
conscientious; they would rather point an epigram than sacrifice style
to truth or good-nature."

"One of them in particular," she said, and there was an irritated ring
in her voice, "has singled me out for attack, and given me in derision a
name which he believes to be Mahometan, but which is really Jewish."

And with her cutting-whip she viciously snapped off the heads of some
poppies. The episode of Tarquin's answer to the emissary of Sextus
occurred to me, and I felt that if my colleague, Horace St. J----, were
there, he would have passed a very bad quarter of an hour.

The females of our party joined us, and I formally presented them,
taking a malicious pleasure in emphasizing the "your Highness." The
Shereefa received them right graciously, but it was easy to notice that
a chill came over the conversation. They were careful never to use the
title to their English sister. In fact, it was a tacit ladies' battle.

It was time to leave, and the Shereefa presented her visitors with two
nosegays, gathered by her own hands. The act had in it something very
royal, with the smallest trace of sly condescension. The Shereef
accompanied us to the outer gate. On the way I motioned to Captain No. 1
to offer him a cigar. He did; his Highness accepted it, bowed, and
gravely put it in his pocket. As we stood on the road at parting, a
peasant was passing with a load of