irreproachably ascetic. He appears to have resembled those Arabian sages
of the Gothic age to whom modern science is largely indebted,--a mystic
enthusiast, but an earnest scholar. A wealthy and singular Englishman,
long resident in another part of the East, afflicted by some languishing
disease, took a journey to Aleppo to consult this sage, who, among his
other acquirements, was held to have discovered rare secrets in
medicine,--his countrymen said in 'charms.' One morning, not long after
the Englishman's arrival, Haroun was found dead in his bed, apparently
strangled, and the Englishman, who lodged in another part of the town, had
disappeared; but some of his clothes, and a crutch on which he habitually
supported himself, were found a few miles distant from Aleppo, near the
roadside. There appeared no doubt that he, too, had been murdered, but
his corpse could not be discovered. Sir Philip Derval had been a loving
disciple of this Sage of Aleppo, to whom he assured me he owed not only
that knowledge of medicine which, by report, Sir Philip possessed, but the
insight into various truths of nature, on the promulgation of which, it
was evident, Sir Philip cherished the ambition to found a philosophical
celebrity for himself."

"Of what description were those truths of nature?" I asked, somewhat
sarcastically.

"Sir, I am unable to tell you, for Sir Philip did not inform me, nor did I
much care to ask; for what may be revered as truths in Asia are usually
despised as dreams in Europe. To return to my story: Sir Philip had been
in Aleppo a little time before the murder; had left the Englishman under
the care of Haroun. He returned to Aleppo on hearing the tragic events I
have related, and was busy in collecting such evidence as could be
gleaned, and instituting inquiries after our missing countryman at the
time I myself chanced to arrive in the city. I assisted in his