Death had this morning his clutch on him; but had Azrael been on one side of the couch, I being on the other, his soul should not have been left from his body.

Disturb me not with further questions, but await the critical minute, and behold in silent wonder the marvellous event." The physician had then recourse to his astrolabe, the oracle of Eastern science, and watching with grave precision until the precise time of the evening prayer had arrived, he sunk on his knees, with his face turned to Mecca, and recited the petitions which close the Moslemah's day of toil.

The bishop and the English baron looked on each other, meanwhile, with symptoms of contempt and indignation, but neither judged it fit to interrupt El Hakim in his devotions, unholy as they considered them to be.
The Arab arose from the earth, on which he had prostrated himself, and walking into the hut where the patient lay extended, he drew a sponge from a small silver box, dipped perhaps in some aromatic distillation, for when he put it to the sleeper's nose, he sneezed, awoke, and looked wildly around.

He was a ghastly spectacle as he sat up almost naked on his couch, the bones and cartilages as visible through the surface of his skin as if they had never been clothed with flesh.

His face was long, and furrowed with wrinkles; but his eye, though it wandered at first, became gradually more settled.