Such was the story, of which this innocent girl gave me, in her own touching language, the outline. The sun was just rising as she finished her narrative. Fearful of encountering the expression of those feelings with which, she could not but observe, I was affected by her recital, scarcely had she concluded the last sentence, when, rising abruptly from her seat, she hurried into the pavilion, leaving me with the words already crowding for utterance to my lips. Oppressed by the various emotions, thus sent back upon my heart, I lay down on the deck in a state of agitation, that defied even the most distant approaches of sleep. While every word she had uttered, every feeling she expressed, but ministered new fuel to that flame within me, to describe which, passion is too weak a word, there was also much of her recital that disheartened, that alarmed me. To find a Christian thus under the garb of a Memphian Priestess, was a discovery that, had my heart been less deeply interested, would but have more powerfully stimulated my imagination and pride. But, when I recollected the austerity of the faith she had embraced,—the tender and sacred tie, associated with it in her memory, and the devotion of woman’s heart to objects thus consecrated,—her very perfections but widened the distance between us, and all that most kindled my passion at the same time chilled my hopes. Were we left to each other, as on this silent river, in this undisturbed communion of thoughts and feelings, I knew too well, I thought, both her sex’s nature and my own, to feel a doubt that love would ultimately triumph. But the severity of the guardianship to which I must resign her,—some monk of the desert, some stern Solitary,—the influence such a monitor would gain over her mind, and the horror with which, ere long, she would be taught to regard the reprobate infidel on whom she now smiled,—in all this prospect I saw nothing but despair. After a few short hours, my happiness would be at an end, and such a dark chasm open between our fates, as must sever them, far as earth is from heaven, asunder. It was true, she was now wholly in my power. I feared no witnesses but those of earth, and the solitude of the desert was at hand. But though I acknowledged not a heaven, I worshipped her who was, to me, its type and substitute. If, at any moment, a single thought of wrong or deceit, towards a creature so sacred, arose in my mind, one look from her innocent eyes averted the sacrilege. Even passion itself felt a holy fear in her presence,—like the flame trembling in the breeze of the sanctuary,—and Love, pure Love, stood in place of Religion.