few bars of a sprightly tune, and then continued--

'My perseverance in these exercises soon led to my being singled out
from among the other prisoners, until I so prevailed upon my gaolers
that the doors were opened for me, and I was allowed out on condition of
presenting myself at the prison gates once a day. What use, think ye,
did I make of my freedom?'

'Nay, you are capable of anything,' said I.

'I set off forthwith to their chief mosque--that of St. Sophia.
When the doors opened and the muezzin called, I was ever the first to
hurry into devotions and the last to leave them. Did I see a Mussulman
strike his head upon the pavement, I would strike mine twice. Did I see
him bend and bow, I was ready to prostrate myself. In this way ere long
the piety of the converted Giaour became the talk of the city, and I was
provided with a hut in which to make my sacred meditations. Here I
might have done well, and indeed I had well-nigh made up my mind to set
up as a prophet and write an extra chapter to the Koran, when some
foolish trifle made the faithful suspicious of my honesty. It was but
some nonsense of a wench being found in my hut by some who came to
consult me upon a point of faith, but it was enough to set their
heathen tongues wagging; so I thought it wisest to give them the slip in
a Levantine coaster and leave the Koran uncompleted. It is perhaps as
well, for it would be a sore trial to have to give up Christian women
and pork, for their garlic-breathing houris and accursed kybobs of
sheep's flesh.'

We had passed through Fareham and Botley during this conversation, and
were now making our way down the Bishopstoke road. The soil changes