army drew the siege tight around the impregnable fortifications, and after six months the army smashed the fortifications and took the city; al-Jazzar was struck down by a Lebanese dagger; and the army pursued its victories to the very borders of the Ottoman state itself. The Lebanese army, Egyptian officers with it, returned to Lebanon and was given a magnificent national welcome.

Shakir hastened to Shams — her father had by then moved to Maasser Beiteddine — to present to her his rescuer and friend Baha' al-Din, the messenger already mentioned. The Guardian of the Border stood and embraced Shakir — and behold, her arms opened and embraced Baha' al-Din as well. With one and the same feeling she received the

two of them, without disclosing to Shakir her earlier acquaintance with his friend.

Baha' al-Din's visits with Shakir to the Guardian of the Border multiplied, and with every visit his unease grew and the clouds of his forebodings gath-ered. Between keeping faith with his friend and the rush of his love for Shams, his long nights passed over him sleep-less, thinking and think-ing, even as the days gained ever greater mastery and sway over Shams. Whenever Shakir pressed Shams to marry, she put him off and calmed his ardor, inventing excuses and reasons, though she knew in herself nei-ther excuse nor reason.

From this flimsy procrastination doubt crept into his conscience, the ember of his faith weakened, and in an hour of anger his rage boiled over and he accused the two of them of betrayal — Shams and Baha' al-Din. Shams, her eyes brimming with tears, threw back the charge, saying: "I love you, Shakir, and I love Baha' al-Din; and for the sake of your hap-piness I shall be the sacrifice, so that you two need never part." Shams's father came in, dried his daughter's tears, and drew the two friends aside for a moment. And on the morrow he was walking in her company toward a spot near the cedars for the duel — Shams to be the prize of the victor.

At the appointed place the

two friends embraced an eternal embrace, and the duel between them began and raged. Each time the chance came for one to finish the other, the swords glanced off into the air of their own accord, without a single drop of blood being spilled; their clothes were slashed to ribbons, yet neither suffered any hurt. But no sooner had Shakir raised his sword with his bared arm to bring it down upon Baha' al-Din's head than the old sheikh leaped between them, shouting and crying: "Stop!" He drew near to Shakir, examining the tattoo standing out on his upper arm — a cedar, with the year 1808 written upon its trunk — and asked him about his family, and whether his parents were still living. He answered that his father had been killed by the fire of Mir Yusuf's soldiers; that of his mother he knew nothing; that he had a sister with

whom he had played as a child and of whom today he knew nothing; that he was from Khiyam, and the companion of his master the Emir. The sheikh's eyes flooded with tears; he clasped him to his breast and said: "Shams is not my daughter, my son — she is your sister. You two are twins, and it is I who raised her. Yes, your father was killed, as you say, and I bought the two of you from the usurpers; you had not yet reached your sixth year when you were lost — and here is Providence restoring you to me once more. That tattoo showing on your arm — its very like is on Shams's arm. Come with me, both of you; let us bring her the happy news." The three returned, dazed and astounded, to Beiteddine, and amid tears and cries all

feeling dissolved in a sublime reunion, Shakir rushing to Shams and clasping her in his arms, crying: "You are my sister, Shams! You are my sister — I am your brother!" And Shams learned the truth about herself and the secret of her feeling for Shakir, and pressed him to her breast, washing his cheeks with the tears of her joy.

That same evening Baha' al-Din returned to his mother and recounted to her his astounding story; but scarcely had he neared its end when she broke in: "Rise at once — I go with you to the sheikh's house." On the road Baha' al-Din's heart raced ahead of him to where, that very night, he would win his beloved. No sooner had he met the sheikh by the great oak and presented him to his mother than he hurried on to the house to tell Shakir and Shams of his mother's coming. And hardly had his mother and the sheikh arrived when she rushed to Shakir and Shams, drawing them to her and crying: "My chil-dren! Shakir! Shams! I am your mother!" — and she fainted away. The sheikh recounted to the three the end of the searing story — it was a scene out of the Thousand and One Nights — and the mother came to herself to gather the three of them to her anew, crying: "Shams, Shakir, Baha' al-Din — my chil-dren, pieces of my very heart! I am your mother. The days scattered us, and the power of God has gathered us together."

Guardian of the Border — a name at which my senses quivered when I heard it on my way to Lebanon, and I felt a surpassing eagerness to hear much about its bearer. But for her, Egypt's messenger would never have reached Lebanon; and without her the family would never have been gathered together... after so long a dispersion.

On the morning of a bitterly cold and snowy day, people saw a very old man, in his nightshirt, working with his axe at a big piece of firewood, chopping it into small pieces..

His neighbor was astonished to see him in this state in such fierce cold, and called out to him from behind the windowpane: - What has happened? Why are you in your nightshirt? The old man answered, without stopping his chopping: - For some seventy years I have been in the habit of putting on my clothes every morning in front of a blazing fire... and I will not allow that habit to be changed today!...