6. But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have, Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind; Do we his body from our fury save, And let our hate prevail against our mind. What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be, Than make his foe more worthy far than he? Lady Elizabeth Carew (the 16th century). CAUTIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR READING. VERSE 1.-Line 1: Avoid the verse-accent upon of. Make a slight pause after action.-Line 3: No accent on without. Hasten on to further. VERSE 2.-Line 1: No emphasis on we. The emphatic word is worthy.-Line 2: The emphatic word is nobly.-Line 3: No emphasis on if. The emphatic word is baser.-Line 4: Avoid the verse-accent on is. The emphatic word is no. VERSE 4.-Line 3: No accent on be. VERSE 5.-Line 1: No accent on if. The emphatic word is must. EXERCISE.-Write a paraphrase of the first two verses. Glutinous, gluey. From Lat. Precincts, inclosures. From Lat. gluten, glue. Relaxation, slackening. From Lat. relaxare, to slacken. Calcined, reduced to a chalky appearance by the action of heat. From Lat. calx, calc-is, chalk or limestone. Baffled, made fruitless. Symptoms, signs. cingo, I gird (stem cinct). (From the same root come cincture, succinct, etc.) Subside, to settle down or de crease. Leeward, the direction to which 1. The dromedary of Egypt and Syria stands in about the same relation to the camel as a racer to a cart-horse. ordinary. The animal is on so large a scale that the His fleetness and endurance are extra jog-trot at which he is generally ridden implies a progress of perhaps ten or twelve miles an hour; and this pace he can keep up incessantly, without food or water or rest, for three whole days and nights. 2. I was anxious to dart forward, and annihilate at once the whole space that divided me from the Red Sea. For about two hours, I think, I advanced without once looking behind me. I then paused, and cast my eyes back to the western horizon. There was no sign of any living creature. I had out-distanced all my followers. 3. I did not fear that I had diverged very largely from the true route, but still I could not feel any reasonable certainty that my party would follow any line of march within sight of me. I had to consider, therefore, whether I should remain where I was, upon the chance of seeing my people come up, or whether I should push on alone, and find my way to Suez. 4. The point for which I was bound bore just due east of Cairo, and I thought that, although I might miss the line leading most directly to Suez, I could not well fail to find my way, sooner or later, to the Red Sea. The worst of it was that I had no provision of food or water, and was already beginning to feel thirst. I deliberated for a minute, and then determined to abandon all hope of seeing my party again in the desert, and push forward as rapidly as possible toward Suez. 6. It was not without a sensation of awe that I swept with my sight the vacant round of the horizon, and remembered that I was all alone and unprovisioned in the midst of the arid waste; but this very awe gave tone and zest to the exultation with which I felt myself launched. Hitherto in all my wanderings I had been under the care of other people-sailors, guides, and dragomen had watched over my welfare; but now, at last, I was here in this African desert, and I myself, and no other, had charge of my life. I liked the office well; I had the greatest part of the day before me, a very fair dromedary, a fur pelisse, and a brace of pistols, but no bread and no water; for these I must ride-and ride I did. 6. For several hours I urged forward my beast at a rapid, though steady pace; but now the pangs of thirst began to torment me. I did not relax my pace, however; and I had not suffered long, when a moving object appeared in the distance. The intervening space was soon traversed, and I found myself approaching a Bedouin Arab mounted on a camel, and attended by another Bedouin on foot. 7. They stopped. I saw that, as usual, there hung from the pack-saddle of the camel a large skin water-flask, which seemed to be well filled. I steered my dromedary close up alongside of the mounted Bedouin, caused my beast to kneel down, then alighted, and keeping the end of the halter in my hand, went up to the mounted Bedouin without speaking, took hold of his water-flask, opened it, and drank long and deep from its leathern lips. 8. Both of the Bedouins stood fast in amazement and mute horror; and really, if they had never happened to see a European before, the apparition was enough to startle them. To see for the first time a coat and a waistcoat with the pale semblance of a human head at the top, and this ghastly figure to come swiftly out of the horizon upon a fleet dromedary-approach them silently and with a demoniacal smile, and drink a deep draught from their water-flask-this was enough to make the Bedouins stare a little. 9. They, in fact, stared a great deal-not as Europeans stare with a restless and puzzled expression of countenance, but with features all fixed and rigid, and with still, glassy eyes. Before they had time to get decomposed from their state of petrifaction, I had remounted my dromedary, and was darting away towards the east. 10. Without pause or remission of pace I continued to press forward; but after a while I found, to my confusion, that the slight track which had hitherto guided me now failed altogether. I had no compass with me, but I determined upon the eastern point of the horizon as accurately as I could by reference to the sun, and so laid down for myself a way over the pathless sands. 11. But now my poor dromedary, by whose life and strength I held my own, began to shew signs of distress. A thick, clammy, and glutinous foam gathered about her lips, and piteous sobs burst from her bosom in the tones of human misery. I doubted for a moment whether to give her a little rest or relaxation of pace; but I decided not, and continued to push forward as steadily as before. 12. The character of the country became changed; I had ridden away from the level tracts, and before me now, and on either side, there were vast hills of sand and calcined rocks that interrupted my progress, and baffled my doubtful road. But I did my best. With rapid steps I swept round the base of the hills, threaded the winding hollows, and at last, as I rose in my swift course to the crest of a lofty ridge, the Sea! the Sea! by my life! I saw the Sea! I pushed forward as eagerly as though I had spoiled the Egyptians, and were flying from Pharaoh's police. 13. I had not yet been able to discover any symptoms of Suez; but after a while I descried in the distance a large, blank, isolated building; I made toward this, and in time got down to it. The building was a fort, and had been built there for the protection of a well, which |