Then who was the second figure in that faint circle of light? One must be Estelle. But the other? Jack's heart filled with painful anxiety. Could it be Thomas? If so, what was he doing there? It was exasperating that Julien should require his services just when it was vitally urgent that he should save Estelle. His duty was clear, however. The boy must be placed in a position of safety before he could feel free to attend to the needs of the little girl, whose sole protector he was.
Happily, Estelle had not yet seen the sailor. The rapid rising of the tide, the urgent appeals of Thomas, and the agony of her distress about her playmate, had made her nearly frantic. It was with much difficulty that the ex-gardener managed to pull her up a little higher, out of the immediate wash of the waves. It was all he could do, for the ledge was too far above their heads for him to place her upon it, though he could save himself. He was making up his mind that the child must be sacrificed, that there was no way of saving her, when he became aware of a voice shouting above the thunder of the sea. Estelle's quick ear caught the sound, too, and with a start that nearly threw her off her perilous perch, she cried out in reply——
'Jack! Jack!'
(Continued on page [322].)
PLOUGHING IN SYRIA.
HE life of a farmer in Syria and Palestine is very different from the life of a farmer in England. He does not live in an isolated farmhouse, in the midst of a number of enclosed fields, which he owns or rents, and which he cultivates at his own cost and for his own profit alone. The country is much too unsettled to permit families to dwell alone, and so they cluster in little villages for their common safety and defence. The cultivated lands of the villagers lie outside the village, and the most fertile ground is sometimes a mile or two away from the houses. The villagers are too poor to enclose each a farm for himself, and the farms are simply cultivated plots lying unenclosed in a great waste, which belongs, perhaps, to the Government, or to some great feudal lord.
Because each man is poor and defenceless, the villagers combine to cultivate these plots together, and they divide among themselves the produce which is raised by their labours. The Government, or the lord of the land, is paid with a certain share of all that is grown upon the land, and this share is collected from the villagers by an officer who is appointed for the purpose, or has bought the right to collect these corn-rents for himself. He is often guilty of great extortion, and even cruelty, in taking his share, or his master's share, of the produce.
How these Syrian villagers perform their farm labours in common we shall see best if we watch them ploughing the land, and sowing corn. They go forth in a band from the village, and make their way to the plot which is to be tilled. Every man is armed, for beyond the cultivated land there is a great waste, or desert, over which bands of robbers roam at will, or there are rocky mountains in which they may hide, and set all good government at defiance.