Terribly the flames were gushing Through the air with sullen roar, And a brutal throng came rushing Fiercely mounted to the door. Sabres rang, and father, brother, Ne'er again beheld each other,-- Us away they rudely tore. Though my eyes with tears are thronging, Still, thou distant motherland, They are turned, how full of longing, Full of love, toward thy strand! Thou, O child, alone dost save me From the thought that anguish gave me, Life to quench with hardy hand. Henry heard the sobbing of a child and a soothing voice. He descended deeper through the shrubbery, and discovered a pale, languishing girl sitting beneath an old oak tree. A beautiful child hung crying on her neck, and she herself was weeping; a lute lay at her side upon the turf. She seemed a little alarmed when she saw the young stranger, who was drawing near with a saddened countenance. "You have probably heard my song," said she kindly. "Your face seems familiar to me; let me think. My memory fails me, but the sight of you awakens in me a strange recollection of joyous days. O! it appears as if you resembled my brother, who before our disasters was separated from us and travelled to Persia, to visit a renowned poet there. Perhaps he yet lives and sadly sings the misfortunes of his sisters. Would that I yet remembered some of the beautiful songs he left us! He was noble and kind-hearted, and found his chief happiness in his lute." The child, who was ten or twelve years old, looked at the strange youth attentively, and clung fast to the bosom of the unhappy Zulima. Henry's heart was penetrated with sympathy. He consoled the songstress with friendly words, and prayed her to relate to him her history circumstantially. She seemed not unwilling to do so. Henry seated himself before her, and listened to her tale, interrupted as it was by frequent tears. She dwelt principally upon the praises of her countrymen and fatherland. She portrayed their loftiness of soul, and their pure, strong susceptibility of life's poetry, and the wonderfully mysterious charms of nature, She described the romantic beauties of the fertile regions of Arabia, which lay like happy islands in the midst of impassable, sandy wastes, refuge places for the oppressed and weary, like colonies of Paradise,--full of fresh wells, whose streams trilled over dense meadows and glittering stones, through venerable groves, filled with every variety of singing birds; regions attractive also in numerous monuments of memorable past time.