spread, perfuming the air of that dreadful place, and stirred in me an appetite not to be restrained; I stretched out my hand and brought it near my mouth, and before it touched my lips

I remembered Jrous's words, and knew that I was drinking the oldest wine in the world. Without reckoning with anything, I drained it at one draught, saying to myself: “Blessed be the vine that bore you, and the jar that held you.”

I woke from a rapture — whether it lasted an hour or an age I cannot tell — in which I beheld rosy dreams that left no pleasure untasted; and I heard the Sheikh's voice saying to me, still seated like an idol: “You may choose to return to your country, or to stay with us and drink the wine of immortality... and we shall enter-tain you well, as you entertained our son Jrous.”

The words fell on me like a thunderbolt and broke my strength, for they cut off every path of denial. I said: “Yes, my lord... yes, I tried to do some part of my duty; but it is not possible for me to stay, for I have a family in Beirut, and... but where is my friend Jrous?” He signed to two elders standing at the door to take me to a place he named in a tongue I did not understand. Do not ask of my agitation when I missed my revolver, my camera, and my stick, and could not find them. The sun had leaned toward the horizon, and its rays struck into the grotto between the columns, and the figure of Sheikh Nimrod became clear to me, send-ing me off with a look in which there was no trace of feeling; rather I felt as though he were gazing down upon my crushed soul from the depths of the ages.

Ill luck would have it that my torment on that unhappy day should be made complete when I met, in the outer hall, two other elders leading Jrous under guard of axes, along the same road toward the Valley of Perdition. He turned to me from afar and said, “We are caught!” — yet he appeared calmer in mind than I, and steadier of nerve.

As for me, the world went black before my eyes, and remorse assailed me for an adventure that had brought upon me and my

friend an evil we could well have spared ourselves; and I regretted having admitted to the Sheikh my kind entertainment of Jrous, not knowing that he too had fallen into the snare. We drew near the Valley of Perdition, and I looked behind me: there was Jrous with his two guards, all but overtaking me, and I noticed that he still walked with steps full of confidence and resolve. No sooner had we reached the chasm of danger than a shot rang out and felled the elder who guarded my right; he toppled, rolling into the

depths, while the second guard, on my left, was busy leveling his weapon at a band of young men descending from among the rocks, led by a girl of striking beauty and mighty frame, who brandished a sword and brought it down on the head of one of the elders, crying: “This in honor of your eyes, Jrous!” Then other shots followed, amid which I heard Jrous's voice ordering me to flee, while he stood in the midst of a raging battle.

I obeyed his command and crossed the brink of the abyss