With the greatest difficulty, yet without exciting apparent suspicion, he found out the exact spot in which Dumah was confined. Upon the first opportunity he slipped noiselessly after the attendant who was carrying the prisoner's pittance of food. Under his robe he had tools for excavating a hole beneath the wall, and his plan was to step silently into the room, secrete himself behind the door, and permit himself to be locked in, trusting to subsequent efforts for effecting the freedom of himself and Dumah. Silently he glided into the darkened room behind the keeper. All within seemed dark as night after the brighter light without; but Dumah's eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could see more clearly. He penetrated the disguise at once. "Amzi! Amzi!" he cried out delightedly, "you have come! You have come!" Amzi knew that all was undone. "Treachery!" called the keeper. The Moslems came pouring into the room. Amzi was overpowered, and pinioned on the spot. "What means this?" cried Asru, the captain of the guard. "Treachery, if it please you," returned the keeper. "An asp which has been in our camp with its poison-fangs hid! No Moslem, but an enemy--a friend of this dotard poet!" "Search him!" was the order. The tools were found. "Aha!" said the captain. "Most conclusive proof, wretch! We will teach you, knave, that foxes are sometimes trapped in their own wiles. Off with him! Chain him!" Amzi was hurried off, and Asru strode away to execute some other act of so-called justice. He was a man of immense stature, heavy-featured, and covered with pock-marks, yet his face was full of strength of character, and bore traces of candor and honesty, though the lines about the mouth told of unrestrained cruelty and passion. At home Yusuf waited in an agony of suspense. The day passed into night, the night into day, the day into night again, yet Amzi did not come. Yusuf could bear it no longer. Anything was better than this awful waiting. Only once he almost gave up hope and cried in the words of the Psalmist, "O Lord, why castest thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me?" Then like balm of healing came the words, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee; he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." Dressed in his quiet, scholarly raiment, and quite unarmed, he set out in search of Amzi. Arriving at the place, he saw none whom he knew. He was stopped at the door. "I wish to see the captain who has command here," he said. "You are a peaceable-looking citizen enough," said a guard, "yet we have orders to search all new-comers, and you will have to submit, stranger." Yusuf was searched, but as neither arms nor tools were found upon him, he was allowed to have audience with the captain. "Ah!" said Asru, recognizing him at once. "What seeks Yusuf, a Christian, of a follower of Mohammed the prophet?" "I seek but the deliverance of two harmless, inoffensive friends," he replied.