artful Dervish had so piled his rags that they took the shape of the form
they had clothed, and he had left, as a substitute for the giver of life,
the venomous reptile of death.

"The strength of my system enabled me to survive the effect of the poison;
but during the torpor that numbed me, my Arabs, alarmed, gave no chase to
my quarry. At last, though enfeebled and languid, I was again on my
horse. Again the pursuit, again the track! I learned--but this time by a
knowledge surer than man's--that the Dervish had taken his refuge in a
hamlet that had sprung up over the site of a city once famed through
Assyria. The same voice that in formed me of his whereabouts warned me
not to pursue. I rejected the warning. In my eager impatience I sprang
on to the chase; in my fearless resolve I felt sure of the prey. I
arrived at the hamlet wearied out, for my forces were no longer the same
since the bite of the asp. The Dervish eluded me still; he had left the
floor, on which I sank exhausted, but a few minutes before my horse
stopped at the door. The carpet, on which he had rested, still lay on the
ground. I dismissed the youngest and keenest of my troop in search of the
fugitive. Sure that this time he would not escape, my eyes closed in
sleep.

"How long I slept I know not,--a long dream of solitude, fever, and
anguish. Was it the curse of the Dervish's car pet? Was it a taint in
the walls of the house, or of the air, which broods sickly and rank over
places where cities lie buried? I know not; but the Pest of the East had
seized me in slumber. When my senses recovered I found myself alone,
plundered of my arms, despoiled of such gold as I had carried about me.
All had deserted and left me, as the living leave the dead whom the Plague
has claimed for its own. As soon as I could stand I crawled from the
threshold. The moment my voice was heard, my face seen, the whole squalid