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