stern and dark as though cast in bronze, and the long lean barrel of steel glistening bright in the moonlight, lifted to deal him the fate he had dealt.
Onward, while the chant of the Muezzin grew fainter and fainter, and the lighted mosques of Stamboul were left distant behind; onward, through the night lit with a million stars, and all on fire with glittering fire-flies; onward, down the beach of the luminous phosphor-radiant sea, along stretches of yellow sand, under beetling brows of granite, over rocky strips foam-splashed with spray, through fields of sweet wild lavender and roses blowing rich with dew, and tangled withes of tamarind tendrils, and myrtle thickets sloping to the shore, and netted screens of drooping orange-boughs, all white with bloom; onward they swept—hunter and hunted—in a race for life and death.
The Greek was always before him; now and again they well-nigh touched, and the foam from his horse's bit was flung on the steaming flanks of the mare he chased; now and again the dull thud of the hoofs thundered almost side by side as they scattered sand and surf, or trampled out the odorous dews from trodden roses. His enemy's life lay in the
