"I kept myself close between the twisted columns, scarcely daring to breathe until they had withdrawn and all was quiet, when I again pursued my way towards the glimmering light, which was still in view, but at what distance before me I could form no idea. Sometimes it appeared close at hand, sometimes a mile off, dancing before me like a will o’ the wisp. My progress was often embarrassed by prostrate columns, and oftener by heaps of fallen masonry. More than once I was nearly suffocated by the foul air of the damp vaults, or the dust and mortar among which I sometimes fell. But I struggled onward manfully, yet feeling a sort of sullen and reckless despair, putting up the while many a pious prayer and ejaculation, strangely mingled with many an earnest curse in Gaelic on Mohammed Djedda, and the architect who planned the labyrinth, though perhaps it might have been the great Gnidian Sostrates himself.[*] After toiling thus for some time until wearied and worn out, I found myself in the lower vault of one of those large round towers which are so numerous among the ancient and ruinous fortifications of Alexandria. A round and shattered aperture, about ten feet from the floor, admitted the pure breeze, which I inhaled greedily, while my eyes gloated on the clear blue sky; and I felt more exquisite delight in doing so, than even when gazing on the pure snowy bosom of the beautiful Zela, whom, to tell you the truth, I had almost forgotten during the quandary in which I found myself. The cry of ’_Jedger Allah!_’ shouted close beside the ruinous tower, informed me I was near the post of a Mussulman sentinel, and compelled me to act with greater caution. I heard the cry (which answers to our ’All’s well’) taken up by other sentinels at intervals, and die away among the windings of the walls. [*] A famous architect, who lived in the reign of one of the Ptolemies.