They were appalled; with a single stride I was at the throat of the leading ruffian, and seized the jewel; it was my bridal present to Miriam! My hand trembled, my eyes grew dim at the glance. But in the next moment I found myself pinioned, a gag forced into my mouth, a cloak flung over me, and I heard the discussion—whether I was to be stabbed on the spot, left to die of famine, or have my tongue cut out, and thus unfitted for telling secrets, be turned to gain and sold for a slave. [Sidenote: In Search of a Family] But this was not to be my lot. The quarrel of the banditti increased with their wine; blows were given; the solitary lamp was thrown down in the conflict; it caught some combustible matter, and the tent was in a blaze. By a violent exertion I loosened the cords from my arms, and in the confusion fled unseen. The fire spread, and my last glance at the valley showed the encampment turned into a sheet of fire. Alone, and exhausted with deadly fatigue, I yet had but one thought, that of seeking my family through the world. I wandered on through the vast range of wild country that guards Syria on the side of the desert. I was parched by the burning noon, I was frozen by the keen winds of night; I hungered and thirsted, yet the determination was strong as death, and I persevered. I at length reached the foot of Mount Amanus, traversed the chain, saw from it the interminable plains of Asia Minor, the desert of Aleppo, the shores of Tripoli, and was then left only to choose in which I should again commence my hopeless pilgrimage. There is something in great distress of mind that throws a strange protection round the sufferer. I passed the Roman guards unquestioned—the robber left me without inquiring whether I was worth his dagger. The wolves, driven down by famine, and devouring all else that had life, neglected the banquet that I might have supplied. Yet I shrank from nothing, and marched on through city, cave and forest. But one evening the sky was loaded with a tempest that drove even me to seek for shelter. I found it in one of the caverns, that so often scare the mariner’s eye, on the iron-bound shore of Cilicia. Fatigue soon threw me into a heavy slumber. The weight of the tempest toward midnight roused me, and from the mouth of the cavern I gazed on the lightning that disclosed at every explosion the sea rolling in foaming ridges before the gale. In the intervals of the gusts I heard, to my surprise, the murmur of many voices, apparently in prayer, close beside me. But all my interest was suddenly fixed on the sea by the sight of a large war-galley running before the wind. She had neither sail nor oar. Her masts were gone and but for the crowd of people on her deck, whose distracted attitudes I could clearly see by the flashes, she looked a floating tomb. [Sidenote: The Rescue in a Tempest]