'Woe is me! Who takes one wrong step, gets out of it by another; and so I went on from enchantment to enchantment, and fell out of the frying-pan into the fire. If I stood erect, and no longer groveled, if I was not any more a beast, I became like the devils which possessed them. So did I scourge and lash the object of my hatred with feelings of the deadliest revenge.
'Oh, my Ben Hadad, presume not from my ultimate escape. If I have ceased to snap and snarl and growl,—if I now, in the decline of life, pursue the even tenor of my way,—if I have been redeemed from snares, and learned even to forgive my enemies, it is because the fair Xarifa represented my better nature, and that has triumphed because I took counsel of her. Farewell, my son, and, in the pilgrimage of life, reflect upon the dear-bought experience of SIDI NORMAN.'
'WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH US?'
What will we do with you, if God
Should give you over to our hands,
To pass in turn beneath the rod,
And wear at last the captive's bands?'
'What will we do?' Our very best
To make of each a glorious State,