“‘I don’t care a rope’s end for the Veiled Prophet or Nourmahal,’ he said, while I wondered again what he was driving at, ‘but I always admired certain descriptive parts of the Fire-Worshipers, which I always thought Byron must have touched up for Moore—for instance ‘—’Mid damp and gloom and crash of boughs, And fall of loosened crops that rouse The leopard from his hungry sleep, Who, starting, thinks each crag a prey, And long is heard, from steep to steep, Chasing them down their thundering way.’ “‘Muscat, you know,’ continued he, ‘is the poet’s Oman.’ “‘Yes,’ I answered, hardly knowing what to say, ‘and a wretched place enough it is, in spite of Moore’s fancy.’ “‘Why,’ he said, still beating the bush about me, ‘there is some difference between the sultan’s palace, plain as its outside is, and the emir’s porphyry walls which the little Irish nightingale sang about—not so much though, to my mind, as between a merchant dreaming of a full cargo to-night, and waking to hear of a wrecked ship and no insurance in the morning—ay, or a captain making two good voyages and finding himself still in debt—ay, deep as the fathomless sea in debt—to his owners.’ “‘That, I suppose, you would call a species of blank-verse, Captain Catherton,’ said I. “‘Ay,’ he answered, with a fierce, tiger-like gleam of his dark eyes, ‘but the beauty of the thing is, this cargo will balance accounts, and it’s a long back stretch from ‘Oman’s green water’ to the sandy shores of Bedford Bay.’ “This was starting the devil with a vengeance, so I determined that he should show his purpose clearly before I gave any reply to the hints he had thrown out. “‘Captain Catherton,’ said I, fixing my eyes firmly upon him, ‘I am no greenhorn to rush into any man’s schemes blindfolded. If you wish my services in any thing that is to my taste, you must speak out.’