"Ass!" replied Harpax, "he cannot discover, if he had all the eyes of Argus's tail.--Here are twelve of us sworn according to the rules of the watch, to abide in the same story. Here is a barbarian, who, if he remembers any thing of the matter--which I greatly doubt--his choice of a lodging arguing his familiarity with the wine-pot--tells but a wild tale of losing his armour, which we, my masters," (looking round to his companions,) "deny stoutly--I hope we have courage enough for that--and which party will be believed? The companions of the watch, surely!" "Quite the contrary," said Sebastes. "I was born at a distance from hence; yet even in the island of Mitylene, the rumour had reached me that the cavaliers of the city-guard of Constantinople were so accomplished in falsehood, that the oath of a single barbarian would outweigh the Christian oath of the whole body, if Christians some of them are--for example, this dark man with a single tuft on his head." "And if it were even so," said the centurion, with a gloomy and sinister look, "there is another way of making the transaction a safe one." Sebastes, fixing his eye on his commander, moved his hand to the hilt of an Eastern poniard which he wore, as if to penetrate his exact meaning. The centurion nodded in acquiescence. "Young as I am," said Sebastes, "I have been already a pirate five years at sea, and a robber three years now in the hills, and it is the first time I have seen or heard a man hesitate, in such a case, to take the only part which is worth a brave man's while to resort to in a pressing affair." Harpax struck his hand into that of the soldier, as sharing his uncompromising sentiments; but when he spoke, it was in a tremulous voice. "How shall we deal with him?" said he to Sebastes, who, from the most raw recruit in the corps, had now risen to the highest place in his estimation. "Any how," returned the islander; "I see bows here and shafts, and if no other person can use them"-- "They are not," said the centurion, "the regular arms of our corps." "The fitter you to guard the gates of a city," said the young soldier, with a horse-laugh, which had something insulting in it. "Well--be it so. I can shoot like a Scythian," he proceeded; "nod but with your head, one shaft shall crash among the splinters of his skull and his brains; the second shall quiver in his heart."