such as soldiers use, which at the present moment was partly folded up and almost hidden from view by a rough bear-skin thrown carelessly across it. El-Râmi sat down in the big ebony chair and looked at a pile of letters lying on his writing-table. They were from all sorts of persons,--princes, statesmen, diplomats, financiers, and artists in all the professions,--he recognised the handwriting on some of the envelopes, and his brows contracted in a frown as he tossed them aside still unopened. “They must wait,” he said half aloud. “Curious that it is impossible for a man to be original without attracting around him a set of unoriginal minds, as though he were a honey-pot and they the flies! Who would believe that I, poor in worldly goods, and living in more or less obscurity, should, without any wish of my own, be in touch with kings?--should know the last new policy of governments before it is made ripe for public declaration?--should hold the secrets of ‘my lord’ and ‘my lady’ apart from each other’s cognisance, and be able to amuse myself with their little ridiculous matrimonial differences, as though they were puppets playing their parts for use at a marionette show? I do not ask these people to confide in me,--I do not want them to seek me out,--and yet the cry is, ‘still they come!’--and the attributes of my own nature are such that, like a magnet, I attract, and so am never left in peace. Yet perhaps it is well it should be thus,--I need the external distraction,--otherwise my mind would be too much like a bent bow,--fixed on the one centre,--the Great Secret,--and its powers might fail me at the last. But no!--failure is impossible now. Steeled against love,--hate,--and all the merely earthly passions of mankind as I am,--I must succeed--and I will!” He leaned his head on one hand, and seemed to suddenly concentrate his thoughts on one particular subject,--his eyes dilated and grew luridly brilliant as though sparks of fire burnt behind them. He had not sat thus for more than a couple of minutes, when the door opened gently, and a beautiful youth, clad in a loose white tunic and vest of Eastern fashion, made his appearance, and standing silently on the threshold seemed to wait for some command. “So, Féraz! you heard my summons?” said El-Râmi gently. “I heard my brother speak,”--responded Féraz in a low melodious voice that had a singularly dreamy far-away tone within it--“Through a wall of cloud and silence his beloved accents fell like music on my ears;--he called me and I came.”