'Now or never,' said Leonora, 'is the moment for our life-belts.'

   We hurriedly put on our life-belts, regretting the absence of an experienced maid.

   'I'll be Mrs. Lecks, and you'll be Mrs. Aleshine!' laughed Leonora, as the dhow, shuddering in all her timbers, collapsed.

   '

    Ego et Lecks mea!

   ' cried I, not to seem deficient in opportune gaiety of allusion, and we were in the water. We advanced briskly down stream, Ustâni propelling himself with the pole of the dhow.

   Ever anxious about Ustâni's University education (interrupted by this expedition), Leonora kept 'coaching' him in the usual way.

   'Bow, you're feathering under water,' she exclaimed, when the unfortunate Ustâni disappeared in a lasher, where we, thanks to our life-belts, floated gaily enough.

   Here we paused to catch a few of the perch and gudgeons, which Leonora had attracted by carefully wearing white stockings.

   'Nothing like white stockings for perch,' she said.

   As there were not perch enough to go round, Ustâni was told to content himself with the pole, a synonym, if not an equivalent.

   Laying our trencher-caps on the water, we used them, as of old, for trenchers, and made an excellent meal.

   CHAPTER VI.

   THE ZÛ.

   Our course was now through a series of cross streams, and finally we emerged into a long, perfectly straight, and perfectly tranquil expanse of water, bordered by a path which had every appearance of having been made by the hand of man.

   Night fell: a strange, murky night, smelling of lucifer matches, and lit on the eastern horizon by a mysterious light, flaring like a dreary dawn.

   Our passage was obstructed by a thousand obstacles, and at one point we plunged into the very bowels of the earth for a distance of at least a quarter 

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