The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-05-17
BARTRELLE.
CHAPTEB xIX-CoNTINUED.

4
hour or two, will gladly avail myself Of
your offer, and try and get some repose."
''Do so, my lady. l will call you if find
it necessary" And as the man took the seat
she offered him, Zera stole silently into the
adjoining apartment Of the tent, to get that
rest which her exhausted frame absolutely
required.
In the last charge upon the enemy, Bar
treble had been wounded in the shoulder. The
shot had been extracted, but the loss Of
blood, combined with the fatigues of the day,
had left him greatly exhausted and suffering
much physical pain. After hours of restless
tossing on his fevered pallet, he had at length
fallen asleep.
He owed his life to Zera! In that last, ter
rible charge, where men were falling around
lin by hundreds and the living and the dead
were being remorselessly trod under foot by
the pursuer and the fugitive, it was her quick
eye that detected his wound; hers the hands
that grasped his tottering form and sustained
it in the saddle as she guided his steed from
the whirlpool of death that was seething
around them. 1t was her lap that sustained
his head as the surgeons probe sunk deep in
the quivering and lacerated flesh; hers the
hand that held the cooling water to his
parched and burning lips.
And now, when all the camp had sunk to
rest, she was watching beside him, minister.
ing to his wants, and applying the soothing
cordial to his burning wound.
In that terrible strife she had shared every
danger-encountered every peril; calm, smil-
ing and serene, she had looked death in the
face, and faltered not amid the wrecks with
which he strewed her path, nor trembled as
he heaped the monuments of his dreadful
carnival.
But now her wearied body could endure no
more, and nature inexorably demanded an
observance of her laws. Sleep has sealed her
eyelids. Yes, she sleeps, even while the lull
of the rivulet is heard in the awful intervals
of the dying cannonade-while the perfume
of the forest flowers mingles with the scent
of blood and the powder-laden air.
This child of the far away Persian valleys
dreams of her native land, and scenes as
grandly beautiful, and sweet with memories
visions Of romance or stirred the annals of
poetry or song All 4! who may paint those
visions that sometimes sweep across the sleep
ing fancy, redolent of some magic spell of
memory, and finging over brain and sense
such brilliant graces as the waking mind never
marveled! Breathing into the heart stung by
sorrow the recollections of another time
when fortune dropped from her cornucopia
choicest gifts, and hope and happiness.
wreathed in smiles, hung garlands of how-
ers along our path in life, the dream Of the
weary and heavy laden has often marked an
interval of beauty on the track of life's bar
rem wastes.
Hours few by, and Zera slept on! Slept
and dreamed Across her mind was swept
the magic charm of memory-no longer an
baJih,e of camps, the glittering panorama
of war fades away, and on her vision rises a
far different scene.
1t is the land of the Orient Deep valleys,
shaded by the Kobe Gubr, from whose sum-
NIT the Fire Temple filings its streams of light
far and wide over an imperial city-the seat
of religion, where the Ghebers affairs ascend
from the walls ofZeyd. There the chenar waves
in living green; and the gaz and the asclepias
scent the air with perpetual perfume Flowers
bloom all the year round, and every tree and
waving bough is heavy with golden fruitage;
and Yemen's fair groves and sunny slopes are
redolent with the bul-bul's song and vocal
with the lutte. There groves of palm catch
the first rays Of fire that stream across the
Persian sea, to light the jasmine bowers
and sunny fountains that adorn an Emirs
porphyry halls. There was she born-there
Zera's childhood strayed through bowers OF
roses all the day long, and listened to the
melody of birds, whose warnings thrilled the
air from the tall pagodn, or gathered chap
lets to adorn her hair from the champacs
golden leaves, and in its long, black, glossy
CLEAN to weave brilliant garlands
She strayed through vast illuminated halls,
where the cool waters gush from founts of
jasper, and corridors whose tassellated floors
are spread with mats from Cairo; or chased
the butterfly from the garden to the saloon
where unnumbered lights are reflected in
broken rainbows from the sheen of fountains,
whose brilliant spray gushes amid vases rich
with arabesques of gold and flowers. Beneath
her feet the mosaic floor shines wet and
glistening with the pictured tints of the sea-
shell and the wild clematis On the high
walls hang pictures bright with views from
fairy land: the GEM King with Sheba's
lovely queen smiled from the glowing can
vass; there Zuleika woos with open arms the
Hebrew boy; and here Mohammed forgets
the Koran in his Mary's smiles, while the
chastened light swan into the apartment soft
and shaded, through curtains screened by
many fold of crimson cloth of gold.
Yes, wildly these exquisite memories
passed across her mind, bringing With them
the playmates of her childhood, racing from
dawn till night through groves where varie-
gated Tories dart and sparkle amid the Grim.
son blossoms of the coral plant, or listened
to the wild pigeons note, that comes sad and
low from the warm isles that bloom in the
artificial sea.