That night he was passing towards his home, without a guard and unarmed. The street was dark and narrow. Towards the end there was a ruin used for the purposes of stalling cattle, where all the homeless and vagrant of the city congregated. He passed the ruin, but saw not a human soul, nor heard a sound. Musing upon the unpleasant occurrences of the morning, he walked leisurely onward. His heart was stirred to a quicker pulsation as he reflected upon what his beloved Bameea might undergo from the criminal jealousy of her royal mistress. On passing a house supported by a projecting buttress, the drapery of his loose dress caught in a fractured stone, and his progress was thus for the instant impeded. As he stopped, he fancied he heard the stealthy sound of footsteps, and, turning round, soon perceived three figures at a short distance cautiously approaching. They paused when they saw that he no longer advanced. The recollection of the Sultana’s threat immediately struck upon his memory like a flash of light. There was something so sinister in the movements of the three men that determined him to be upon his guard. He placed his back against the wall, having his left side protected by the projecting buttress. The men advanced, and upon reaching the place where the Ameer-ool-Omrah was stationed, sprang upon him simultaneously, and attempted to pierce him with their daggers. With a sweep of his muscular arm he levelled two of them to the earth, and raising his foot, impelled it with such quickness and force against the body of the third that he fell senseless. One of the assailants who had been struck down was almost instantly on his legs, and rushed forward with his dagger raised to strike; but, stumbling over his prostrate companion, the Abyssinian caught him in his arms, lifted him like a cushion in the air, and dashing him on the ground, left him there stunned. Releasing the weapon from the grasp of his fallen foe, he approached the other man who had been first prostrated by the sweep of his arm; buried in his heart the instrument with which he had just armed himself; and taking their turbans from the heads of the other two assassins, bound their hands and feet together, and in this painful situation left them to the charities of the casual passenger.