circumstances, when there appeared at the further end of the avenue in which he waited, a band of priests in strange garb, followed by singing girls and musicians, who played on harps an accompaniment to the deep-toned chanting of the priests, while around them all danced little children robed in white, who scattered flowers in profusion on every side. Hardinge withdrew to the shadow of a massive arch as the procession neared him, and waited for it to pass, but as no one appeared to remark his presence, he watched the multitude with all the curious interest of a stranger. Arrived before a temple of vast proportions, which he had previously noticed, the singing girls and musicians paused, and the priests alone entered the building.

The solemnity of the scene was so much in keeping with the feelings which animated the young Englishman that he bowed his head in silence until the throng had begun to disperse; then, touching upon the arm a man who had paused for a moment near at hand, he inquired the meaning of the demon

stration.

The stranger turned quickly, saying in a rich, musical voice: "Art thou but lately come to the city, that thou knowest not of the worship of Belus? It is the hour of the morning sacrifice, and they whom thou hast seen to pass within are priests of his temple. Thy countenance would seem to betoken that thou art not of the people of mighty Assyria. Who art thou, friend, and whence comest thou?"

This was a contingency for which Hardinge had made no provision since his strange arrival. To have endeavored to explain his presence and give his questioner an answer which his intelligence could comprehend was out of the range of possibility, for to have stated the facts would have subjected him to the suspicion of being mad; so he unhesitatingly replied that he was the son of a merchant from the south, intrusted by his father with the care of a caravan bringing dried fruits to the local market; that he had but lately arrived, and this being his first visit to the city, its manners and customs were strange to him.

This reply seemed to satisfy his simple-minded companion, for he added pleasantly:

"If thou wouldst see the greater glories of our city, of which truly thou hast seen but a glimpse, let us go hence, and I marvel not thine eyes shall rest upon sights and scenes that will cause thee endless wonder long after they have faded from thy view."

Hardinge gratefully accepted this courteous offer, and his good-natured conductor led him past the bazaars, at which were offered for sale flowers, fruits and confections, matchless linen from Nineveh's renowned looms, silks from Arabia, cunningly wrought specimens of the gold-beater's handiwork, and the thousand and one things, both luxuries and necessities, which the people of an Oriental city require, while here and there were booths at which the thirsty passer-by might linger to sip delicious beverages, nowhere more thoroughly appreciated than under the burning Eastern sun.

Everything was so novel to Hardinge that he scarcely noted the flight of the minutes. As they turned into the great central plaza of the city, surrounded on all sides by massive buildings faced with alabaster and limestone, he could no longer maintain the air of idle curiosity which he had deemed it best to assume, but broke into exclamations of unfeigned delight. In the middle of the plaza a fountain fantastically wrought threw its sparkling contents high into the light of the morning sun, and on every side appeared evidences of the splendor of which he had heard. Immense human-headed figures having the bodies of lions, bulls and winged creatures; basaltic obelisks, inscribed on all sides with the prevailing cuneiform characters, which his companion explained chronicled the history of the wars of the first Assyrian Empire, came into view.

The apparel of those who passed the two men was similar to that depicted in the surrounding carvings, and was rich to the degree of extravagance.

As they stood in admiring silence-the one with pride glowing in his face that his native city should thus arouse the enthusiasm of a stranger, the other with all the appreciation of beauty which his complex nature possessed called to the surface by the inimitable skill displayed in what he saw-a blast of trumpets was heard reverberating along the fronts of the immense piles. As the echoes died away a change came over the bearing of

his companion, and Hardinge, with characteristic insular contempt for cowardjce, could not repress a feeling of scorn at the cringing attitude of the man. Agitation and fear were written upon. his face as clearly as though sculptured by his skillful countrymen upon their native stone, and this could not have been due to other than a confirmed habit. When next he spoke, his voice quavered with emotion, and the reason for it was given in these words:

"Tis the King! Bow down thy face to the earth, good stranger, lest his mighty wrath be kindled against thee, for none dare look upon his countenance unbowed and live! Did he see me, a citizen of his capitol, in thy presence, and note that thou bendest not to the majesty of his presence, my miserable life and thine would be put out as is the light of a rush-torch in the wind!" But a strange fatality seemed to possess Hardinge's soul. He heard the words but regarded them not, and he who had uttered them, perceiving that he was apparently addressing a madman, fled precipitately from his side, and was lost to view in the crowd about them, whom Hardinge now observed prostrated upon their faces in the manner of miserable slaves; and such indeed they were, for was not the despot whose approach they thus obsequiously heralded, the arbiter of their existence?

Hardinge paid little attention to the unceremonious leave-taking of his late companion, but stood as though rooted to the spot as the cavalcade approached. Never in his travels had he beheld such magnificence.

Sardanapalus, the king, for it was he, was borne aloft by twelve sturdy Nubian slaves dressed in brilliantly colored garments, finely contrasted with the blackness of their muscular arms, that glistened like polished ebony as they moved forward with stately tread. The chair of state in which their imperious master rode was literally coated with golden plates cunningly wrought into designs representing birds, beasts and flowers, while precious stones gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight.

The monarch was arrayed in flowing robes of a surpassingly beautiful texture, which well set off his fine martial figure, and the regal effect of his presence was heightened by his lustrous black eyes, now angrily glittering beneath his bushy

brows as they rested upon the erect figure of Hardinge, standing alone in respectful silence but evident disregard of the national custom.

Warriors and statesmen, clad in garments less magnificent than their ruler, but nevertheless of great beauty, surrounded him upon all sides. The former wore coats of mail and helmets embossed with figures of strange divinities, and carried the universal short sword, together with a thrusting-lance and bow and arrows. To one of these attendants the king spoke quickly, at the same time pointing his jeweled finger with an angry gesture to where the bewildered Hardinge stood watching the scene, and at a word of command several warriors left the ranks and strode toward him.

He could not doubt their intentions, which were all too apparent, but he made no effort to escape, which, indeed, he instinctively felt would have been futile, and he was seized with a grip in which he was as an infant, despite his previous athletic training. Notwithstanding his earnest protestations against such treatment, his words seeming in his excitement a mixture of his native tongue with that of the people of the city, he was hurried through the kneeling multitude to a building which proved to be a prison, for one of his captors signed to an invisible warder, and the great brass door silently swung open, to close upon them as silently.

After being deprived of his sword, the prisoner was unceremoniously pushed into an inside room, to which entrance was gained by another door of the same metal as the first. Here the men released their hold, and turned to go, when Hardinge, fearing that he might not have another chance to explain himself, grasped one of them by the arm with the energy of despair, thinking to detain him long enough to listen to his statement, but the man, believing himself attacked, wheeled quickly and dealt the unfortunate fellow a blow in the face that hurled him to the floor stunned and bleeding, and the door closed with a vicious clang.

Well would it have been for the prisoner could he have passed away without regaining consciousness, but that was not to be. At the expiration of a half hour, when his eyes opened and he was able to control his thoughts enough to realize his position, he groaned bitterly,

for that he was in a place from which there was little hope of escape was only too apparent. The only window was far beyond his reach, and, in addition, was protected by a heavy brass lattice. So smooth were the blocks of stone of which the walls were built that no foothold could be obtained, and the interstices between the courses were matched to a nicety unknown to the unfortunate prisoner. No cement had been used, the builders apparently having relied upon the size of the blocks and the accuracy with which they had been quarried to keep them in place.

A heavy bronze staple or ring, embedded in the floor, held a chain by which to confine the miserable wretches for whom the cell was destined, and Hardinge ground his teeth in impotent rage at the thought that it should have been deemed necessary to add any other safeguard to the impregnable walls. With discouragement bearing him down, and nearly crazed with the throbbing of his wounded head, he flung himself upon the cheerless stone bench beneath the window, and abandoned himself to most unhappy reflection.

That he should be able to explain to his jailers the circumstances attending his strange entrance into their city, if, indeed, they gave him a chance to do so, seemed doubtful, and he shuddered at the uncertainty of the fate which they would mete out to him. Where were Eldredge and the Consul? Would they not make a search for him? Surely his countrymen would demand his immediate release from those who now detained him, for was he not a subject of one of the most powerful kingdoms of the earth? Yes, it was all a miserable mistake, and he would be liberated on the following morning at the latest; but in the midst of these attempts at reassurance his thoughts reverted to his singular journey, and a glance at his odd. garments warned him that his friends were utterly powerless to reach him.

A realization of the worst gave him a feeling of self-reliance, and he became stolidly calm. He arose quickly and examined the cell to see if there might not, after all, be a way of escape, but no-not a crevice appeared through which a mouse might creep. On one side the massive door, devoid of a peep-hole, shut him in, and in all other directions the solidly constructed ma

sonry offered no encouragement for release. He was about to abandon his examination, when he observed that the floor had been hewn from one immense block, and where this joined the base of the walls were a number of minute piles of sand, evidently produced by the friction of one stone upon another.

His curious mind led him, forgetful for the moment of his misery, to a mental inquiry into this phenomenon, and its solution came to him with dreadful force. He had read of persons standing over an active volcano, unsuspicious of danger, but how much more terrible his own position! The mass upon which he stood was arranged to move downward and backward below the foundation of the walls, and at the caprice of his jailers he might be cast into space, and, far removed from his friends by a vast expanse of time and distance, who would ever know?

The fiendish ingenuity of him who had planned the cell well-nigh caused the unhappy prisoner to lose his intelligence. His thoughts traveled like lightning to his home in remote England, and before his eyes appeared a vision of the sweet face of his only sister Molly, and Eldredge. To be sure, they would mourn him sincerely, but would be happy in each other's love. England! Molly! Eldredge! Were these names nothing more than the creations of his puzzled fancy? Did they or did they not exist?

In his distracted state inaction meant but an earlier death, and that at his own hands, and he feverishly examined the cold walls again. The bench-ah, he could still escape them by standing upon that when the floor slipped from beneath his feet! But no; even this consolation was denied him, for it, too, was arranged to move with the floor, of which it was a part.

How he did it he could not have told, but the importance of making an effort to save himself was before him, and with superhuman strength he sprang upward from the bench and felt his bleeding fingers close upon the brass lattice of the window. There he hung, not daring to look downward; his strength fast ebbing, his thoughts-he had no thoughts, for the disjointed fragments of impressions which flitted through his mind could not be so called. In strange contrast to his terrible plight,

the air without, redolent with the scent of flowers, always suggestive of peace, was wafted through the grating to his panting nostrils, telling him of the freedom which should have been his.

Feeling a breath of dampness against his limbs, he turned his eyes and looked over his shoulder toward the floor upon which he had so lately stood. It had noiselessly moved away, and in its place yawned a gulf whose black interior his eye could not pierce. His brain reeled in delirium; he felt his hold upon the lattice gradually slipping, slipping away, despite his frantic efforts to retain it, and with a pitiful cry he lost consciousness and fell backward and down, down, down, grasping at the va

cant air.

At a late hour in the same night in which Hardinge had set out upon his wild errand, a party of a dozen horsemen left the city gates and took the path leading to the ruins. At the head of the little company rode Henry Eldredge, deep anxiety written on every lineament of his thoughtful face. The protracted absence of his friend had caused him great unrest, and each hour as the night wore away he had started from troubled dreams only to find the bed on which Hardinge should have been soundly sleeping still vacant. He had therefore aroused the Consul and explained the situation, at the same time expressing the fear, which he could not throw off, that his friend was in need of assistance.

The Consul's face assumed a look of deep concern as he listened to the recital of his guest's folly, and he promised to have an immediate search made for the missing man. In order to do this, he summoned his body servant and instructed him to have two horses made ready for instant departure, and seizing pen and paper, scrawled a few hurried lines, which he sent, notwithstanding the hour, at top speed to the Pasha of the district, with whom his official duties had brought him into friendly relations, briefly stating the facts and requesting a cavalry escort to assist in the search. The messenger soon returned with the reply that his Excellency begged leave to express his sympathy with the

Consul and Mr. Eldredge, and would personally accompany them, if agreeable. Furthermore, the desired escort would be ready to leave without delay, and would at once repair to the consulate. This accomplished, nothing more could be done until their arrival ; but the time consumed while waiting for them seemed to Eldredge ages long, though it was in reality but a few minutes.

Promptly upon their appearance, the party set out, under the leadership of the Consul, the Pasha for the time being having resigned this responsibility into his care. As they galloped through the deserted streets, the sound of their horses' hoofs echoing loudly through the stillness of the night, and rousing from slumber such of the natives as the heat had driven to the house-tops for comfort, Eldredge's anxiety seemed to communicate itself to his companions, for no word was spoken. The gates were quickly left, no halt being made for the exhibition of passes, as the guards readily recognized the uniform of the Pasha's household troops, and they were soon riding hard upon the path taken by the missing man earlier in the night, guided by the Cawass, to whom the surrounding country was familiar.

It was not long before the distance separating them from the ruins was covered, and within the shadow of the mounds the party divided itself into several groups, with instructions to make a rigid search for any evidences of the presence of Hardinge. Several of the troopers were to remain at the point at which the party broke up, lighting a fire for the double purpose of keeping off such beasts as prowled around the ruins at night, and as a guide to the searchers in the event of it being thought wise to come together again for further consultation.

Eldredge and the Consul rode to the river bank, calling loudly Hardinge's name, and stopping at brief intervals to listen for any sound in reply, but nothing was heard beyond the howling of the skulking hyenas and jackals, who, however, kept at a safe distance from the friends. By the light of the still brilliant moon the marks of many hoofs could be discerned in the mud at the ford of the river, and Eldredge uttered an exclamation of dismay when he discovered signs of a considerable body of

horsemen having recently crossed there. The small imprint of the hoofs left but little room to doubt that the horses were from the desert, and, if so, their riders were in all probability the very persons against whom Hardinge had been warned.

Eldredge and his companion were able to follow the tracks to within a short distance of the ruins, where the trampled condition of the ground showed a halt to have been made. They carefully examined the vicinity for any trace left by the missing man, and had given up hope of finding any, when an exclamation from the Consul, who was some distance away, brought Eldredge to his side. The sight that met his eyes was little calculated to allay his forebodings of evil.

At the bottom of a gully which had been left by the spring rains, lay the body of Hardinge's magnificent horse, shot through the temple. The saddle and bridle had been maliciously slashed in a dozen places, but had not been removed, probably because too likely to be discovered if in the possession of any but the rightful owner.

Eldredge sank upon the ground, a chill of dread stealing over him at this evidence of the character of those into whose hands there was good reason to believe his friend had fallen. The Consul, hoping to arouse him from the unhappy frame of mind into which this discovery had thrown him, called his attention to the probability that Hardinge's captors had taken him to the desert to be held until ransomed by his friends, and that the finding of his horse's dead body was not of necessity to be accepted as a sign that its owner had been foully dealt with, as the presence of the former in the possession of the thieves would at once have directed suspicion to them.

This reasoning seemed so plausible that Eldredge could not but acknowledge its truth, and they had started back to the spot where their horses were patiently standing, intending to remount and return to the point of rendezvous, when a distant bugle-note was borne down the wind to their ears. This had been agreed upon as a signal in case anything of importance was discovered, and as the ominous sound died away, the two men with sinking hearts turned their horses' heads in the direction

whence it came, and galloped as fast as the unevenness of the ground permitted. Their way led them back past the brightly blazing watch-fire, and a hasty inquiry of those who had remained there, for any news, met with the answer that they, too, had heard the bugle-note, but having orders to remain where they were, they had refrained from following it to its source. Other than this they had nothing to report, and the two men urged on their horses as fast as possible, guided by the mournful sound of the bugle, which was blown at intervals by a trooper stationed upon a prominent point with a brightly blazing torch. As they rounded that portion of the mound which abutted upon the plain, they swung themselves from their saddles and scrambled as well as they might up the steep ascent, and to the edge of one of the trenches, preceded by the man with the light. In the excavation were grouped a number of his comrades, and in their midst Eldredge could discern, in the flickering glare of the torch, the form of his friend, lying as he had fallen from the height above, his handsome. face covered with dust and blood, and his arms outstretched, as though having tried to stay his downward course.

Fortunately the body had fallen into a well-like depression, the straight walls of which had made it inaccessible to the beasts of prey, who had been put_to flight by the finders of the body. Indeed, the snarling pack had rendered good service to the search-party, who had been attracted to the spot by the commotion made by them in their vicious attempts to reach their quarry.

In an instant Eldredge had swung himself down to the side of his friend, who, to all appearances, was past human assistance. A terrible wound in the back of the head, sufficient to have killed a man of less vitality than Hardinge, showed clearly why he had not returned. The pockets of his clothing. were inside out, and so thoroughly had the thieves done their work that nothing of value had been left behind.

By this time the remainder of the party had gathered, and the still-breathing form was tenderly lifted to the surface and deposited upon a stretcher roughly improvised from the stunted trees growing about, and they returned to the city as rapidly as the condition of the wounded man allowed.