* * * * *


ABAD AND ADA.

_A lost leaf from the Arabian Nights_.

(_For the Mirror_.)


In the days of Caliph Haroun Alraschid, the neighbourhood of Bagdad was
infested by a clan of banditti, known by the name of the "Ranger Band."
Their rendezvous was known to be the forests and mountains; but their
immediate retreat was a mystery time had not divulged.

That they were valiant, the intrepidity with which they attacked in the
glare of noonday would demonstrate; that they were numerous, the many
robberies carried on in the different parts of the Caliph's dominions
would indicate; and that they were bloody, their invariable practice of
killing their victim before they plundered him would argue. They had
sworn by their Prophet never to betray one another, and by the Angel of
Death to shed their blood in each other's defence. No wonder, then, that
they were so difficult to be captured; and when taken, no tortures or
promises of reward could extract from them any information as to the
retreat of their comrades.

One day, as Giafar, the Vizier, and favourite of the Caliph, was walking
alone in a public garden of the city, a stranger appeared, who, after
prostrating himself before the second man in the empire, addressed him