er yielded to the fascination, and replied:

"I am the author of the book; but the substance of it is not mine: it
contains an account of all the ruses and stratagems of women."

"What! Absolutely all?" said the daughter of the desert.

"Yes, all! And it has been only by a constant study of womankind that I
have come to regard them without fear."

"Ah!" said the young Arabian girl, lowering the long lashes of her white
eyelids.

Then, suddenly darting the keenest of her glances at the pretended sage,
she made him in one instant forget the book and all its contents. And
now our philosopher was changed to the most passionate of men. Thinking
he saw in the bearing of the young woman a faint trace of coquetry, the
stranger was emboldened to make an avowal. How could he resist doing
so? The sky was blue, the sand blazed in the distance like a scimitar
of gold, the wind of the desert breathed love, and the woman of Arabia
seemed to reflect all the fire with which she was surrounded; her
piercing eyes were suffused with a mist; and by a slight nod of the head
she seemed to make the luminous atmosphere undulate, as she consented
to listen to the stranger's words of love. The sage was intoxicated
with delirious hopes, when the young woman, hearing in the distance the
gallop of a horse which seemed to fly, exclaimed:

"We are lost! My husband is sure to catch us. He is jealous as a tiger,
and more pitiless than one. In the name of the prophet, if you love your
life, conceal yourself in this chest!"

The author, frightened out of his wits, seeing no other way of getting
out of a terrible fix, jumped into the box, and crouched down there. The
woman closed down the lid, locked it, and took the key. She ran to meet
her husband, and after some caresses which put him into a good humor,
she said:

"I must relate to you a very singular adventure I have just had."

"I am listening, my gazelle," replied the Arab, who sat down on a rug
and crossed his feet after the Oriental manner.

"There arrived here to-day a kind of philosopher," she began, "he
professes to have compiled a book which describes all the wiles of which
my sex is capable; and then this sham sage made love to me."

"Well, go on!" cried the Arab.

"I listened to his avowal. He was young, ardent--and you came just in
time to save my tottering virtue."

The Arab leaped to his feet like a lion, and drew his scimitar with a
shout of fury. The philosopher heard all