the eye, "I seek to seal a covenant with Arabia's Prince; not with Boabdul dead."

The Arabian had looked on death, and knew that the wine of life was sweet to him; so anger departed utterly, and humor seized him till he laughed aloud.

"Now by my father's beard," he cried, as he caught the Assyrian's hands in his and pressed them against his breast, "if Ninus keepeth faith as he chooseth messengers, right gladly will I call him Brother of my Soul!"

Then a mighty cheer arose, whose echoes rolled far out across the plains—a cheer for Ninus, lord of all Assyria—and another, louder, longer still, for the lion-hearted messenger. It had come upon the Arabs that Menon not once had sought to strike a fatal blow, but had stood before the desert's fiercest scimitar, undaunted, staking all upon his strength, and had spared where he might have slain.

They led him unto Boabdul's tent, where the Prince's aged leech administered to his wound. They bathed and anointed him lest he suffer hurt because of his heated blood, and clothed him in raiment from Boabdul's royal chests.

The treaty was duly sealed, to stand between two kingdoms through the march of years; and neither monarch once broke its covenants, albeit the links thereof were oft' times strained by jealousies and the wild unrest of evil men.

When the terms of peace were closed to the smallest point, then Menon and his followers abode with the Prince for the space of seven days, wherein the hours of light were passed in hunting and in sports of arms, while the nights were given o'er to feasts and revelry. The guests were regaled at a kingly board, where wine cups circled till the thirsts of men could ask no more, their senses steeped in the charms of music and of maidens who danced unveiled before their eyes.

In the hour of parting Boabdul took the Assyrian to his heart and bade him think on Araby as a tent-flap ever held aside; and more, he made the gift of a noble steed from the plains of Barbary, a brother stallion to the one which he himself bestrode. With the steed went an Indian slave whom the Prince called Huzim, a giant from the Indus, with shoulders of mighty girth and whose bow no arm save his alone could draw.

So Menem, in sadness, parted from his host and journeyed into Syria, where he came upon Surbat, the drowsy Governor thereof. This man he removed from office and sent the head of him to Nineveh, taking council with the gods of craft that he save his own.

Then he rode upon the back of Syria, as a mahout drives a fractious elephant, goading with a goad of tax, till the hills resounded with its echoed trumpetings.