"Thirteen strokes," thought he; "thirteen strokes, and at the Thirteenth the tower will fall, the city crumble to dust, the world be at an end." Such had been his dream, and the moment of its accomplishment was come.
He found the hammer, and struck with all his force upon the bell. He repeated the blow; twelve times he struck, and each stroke rang with deafening violence through his brain; but at the Thirteenth, as he raised his arms high above his head, and leaning back against the railing, threw his whole strength and energy into the blow, the frail balustrade gave way under his weight, and he fell headlong from the tower. The last stroke tolled out, sad and hollow as a funereal knell, and the sound mingled with the death-cry of the luckless Thirteenth!
REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.[15]
Galloping, gossiping, flirting and fighting, feasting and starving, but always in high spirits and the best possible humour, Colonel Napier might answer an advertisement for "A Pleasant Companion in a Post-chaise," without the slightest chance of rejection. But it is difficult to imagine so dashing a traveller, boxed up in a civilized conveyance, rolling quietly along a macadamized road, with a diversity of milestones and an occasional turnpike gate, the only incidents by the way—no wild Maronite glimpsing at him over the hedge; no black-eyed houri peeping over the balustrades of the caravanserai, (called by vulgar men the Bricklayers' Arms)—no Saïces to help John Hostler to change horses; but dulness, uniformity, and most tiresome and unromantic safety. England, we are sorry to confess it, is not the land of stirring adventures or hair-breadth 'scapes—a railway coach occasionally blows up; a blind leader occasionally bolts into a ditch; a wheel comes occasionally into dangerous collision with one of Pickford's vans; but these are the utmost that can be hoped for in the way of peril, and other excitement there is positively none. We have treated life as the mathematician did Paradise Lost—we have struck out all its similes—obliterated its flights—expunged its glorious visions—we have made it prose. But fortunately for us—for Colonel Napier—for the reading public—there is a land where mathematicians are unknown, and where poetry continues to flourish in the full vigour of cimeters and turbans—the region of the sun—
"The first of Eastern lands he shines upon."
It was in this very beautiful, but rather overdone portion of earth's surface, that the adventures occurred of which we are now to give some account; and as probably most of our readers have heard the name of Syria pretty often of late, we need not display much geographical erudition in pointing out where it lies. It would be pleasant to us if we could atone for brevity in this respect, by illuminating the reader on the causes that have brought Syria so prominently forward; but on this point we confess, with shame and confusion of face, that we know no more than Lord Ponsonby or M. Thiers. The truth seems to be, that some time, about two or three years ago, five or six people in influential stations went mad, and our Secretary for Foreign Affairs took the infection. He showed his teeth and raised his "birse," and barked in a most audacious manner, till the French kennel answered the challenge; an old dog in Egypt cocked his tail at the same time, and the world began to be afraid that hydrophobia would be universal. All parties were delighted to let the rival yelpers fight it out on so distant a field as Syria; and in that country of heat and dryness, of poverty, anarchy, cruelty, and superstition, there was a skrimmage that kept all Christendom on the tenter-hooks for half-a-year; and this we believe to be the policy of the Syrian campaign. Better for all parties concerned, that a few thousand turbaned and malignant Turks or Egyptians should bite the dust, than that there should be another Austerlitz or Waterloo. So the signal was accordingly given, and the work began.
Wherever there is any fighting it is not to be doubted that the English hurra will be heard—and an apparition had been seen in the smoke of battle, which had sorely puzzled the wisest of the soothsayers of Egypt to explain. It was of a being apparently human, but dressed as if to represent Mars and Neptune at the same time, charging along the tops of houses, with the jolly cocked-hat of a captain of a British man-of-war on the point of his sword, and a variety of exclamations in his mouth, more complimentary to the enemy's speed than his courage. The muftis, we have said, were sorely puzzled, and at last set it down as an infallible truth that he must be none other than Old Harry, whereas there was not a sailor in the fleet that did not know that it was none other than Old Charley. And this identical Old Charley, in a style of communication almost as rapid as his military evolutions, had indited the following epistle to the author of the volumes before us:—
"Headquarters of the Army of Lebanon.—Djouni, Sept. 1840.