No attempt to plunder appeared as an excuse for the Satanic crime, and the only object doubtless was the acquisition of that barbarous estimation and distinction which is only to be arrived at through deeds of assassination and blood. For every victim, sleeping or waking, that falls under the murderous knife of one of these fiends in human form, he is entitled to display a white ostrich plume in the woolly hair, to wear on the arm an additional bracelet of copper, and to adorn the hilt of his reeking creese with yet another stud of silver or pewter--his reputation for prowess and for bravery rising amongst his clansmen in proportion to the atrocity of the attendant circumstances. At perpetual strife with the Danakil, although the chiefs of the tribes are on outward terms of friendship, and even of alliance, no opportunity is lost of retaliating upon the mountain Bedouin--every fresh hostility creating a new blood feud, and each life taken on either side, being revenged two-fold, _ad infinitum_. Ere the day dawned the mangled bodies of the dead, now stiff and stark, were consigned by their sorrowing comrades to rude but compact receptacles of boulder stones--untimely tombs constructed by the native escort, who had voluntarily addressed themselves to the task. And a short prayer, suited to the melancholy occasion, having been repeated as the mortal remains of each gallant fellow, enveloped in a blood-stained winding sheet, were lowered to their wild resting-place, three volleys of musketry, paying the soldier's last tribute, rang among the dark recesses of the ravine, when the hurried obsequies were concluded by scaling the entrance to the cemeteries, in which, however, it is not probable that the dastardly sons of Satan--still doubtless watching with savage satisfaction from some inaccessible cranny--long suffered their victims to sleep. In the grave-like calm of the night, under the pale light of the wan moon, which only partially illumined the funereal crags that hemmed in the dreary chasm, and rose in gloomy sadness over the vaults of the departed, the scene was mournful and impressive. Mohammad Ali, Izhak, and Hajji Kasim, with all their retainers, appeared deeply touched by the fatal occurrences that had so thinned the ranks of a party for whose lives they had made themselves responsible; but they referred the event to fate and to the Almighty fiat, adding that, although they were unable to restore the dead to life, or undo that which by the will of Heaven had been done, their own eyes should never close in sleep so long as danger was to be apprehended from the dreaded Eesah, whose only honour and wealth consists in the number of foul butcheries with which their consciences are stained, and whom even savages concur in representing as sanguinary and ferocious monsters, "fearing neither God nor Devil." Volume One, Chapter XVII. THE STRICKEN FOLLOWER DIES--CAIRNS OF THE MURDERED--ALLOOLI AND BEDI KURROOF.