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 >> What we have here is four pieces of Victorian literature built around the theme of hashish
 intoxication. In every case but one, these are American writers, Richard Burton being
 the exception. Hashish was introduced into Europe by the French, but it didn't ever attain
 in Europe in the 19th century the kind of vogue that it was to attain in the United
 States, largely due to the literary efforts of Bayard Taylor and Fitzhugh Ludlow. And
 in the readings we will hear, Fitzhugh Ludlow directly attributes his interest in hashish
 to the article by Bayard Taylor, which he had read a couple of years before his first
 hashish experiments when it was published in the Atlantic Monthly. There's a confluence
 of artistic and social intent in the American mind with the powers of hashish that seems
 extraordinarily serendipitous. In other words, the rich strain of American transcendentalism
 fueled by the pre-Raphaelite strain in literature and architecture seemed ready-made for the
 kind of sublime and ecstatic visions which these American Victorians were able to obtain
 from eating their hashish. There is nothing comparable to these kinds of visionary excursions
 in the modern practice of smoking cannabis products because a much more diminished amount
 of the drug is delivered to the individual at any given time. If you notice, these descriptions
 of hashish intoxication are comparable to 20th century descriptions of intoxication
 with LSD or psilocybin, some of the stronger psychopharmacological agents. I don't think
 there can be much doubt that Romanticism, American transcendentalism, the French fascination
 with the Orient in fashion and design and literature, all of these 19th century concerns,
 a general tendency toward the florid in design, in philosophical thinking, even in social
 forms, can in part be attributed to this strong Orientalizing influence of which hashish was
 a major player. The Victorian literary style seems uniquely suited, especially in the case
 of Fitzhugh Ludlow, to conveying the confused, shifting, multileveled and imagistic tonality
 that is typical of the hashish experience. So it's a very fortuitous marriage of style
 and subject matter that we meet in these four pieces, as I said, three by American hashish
 aficionados, and the exception being Richard Burton, whose pieces are drawn from his translation
 of The Thousand and One Nights and show the influence of hashish on climaxed Islamic society,
 put through the filter of the fine job of translation that Burton did, a great Victorian
 traveler, polymath, and geographer in his own right.
 We had a dual motivation, my partner Kat and myself, in making these recordings. First
 of all, we thought that it was a sufficient challenge to the partnership ideal for a man
 and a woman to try to re-embody the writing of these Victorian hashish aficionados. Two
 of the writings accentuate the women's point of view, since Louisa May Alcott is one of
 the writers. And in the second case, Richard Burton's retelling of The Thousand and One
 Tales of Scheherazade is from a woman's point of view, uses a woman's voice.
 The other motivation for this project is the difficulty of obtaining printed versions of
 this material. There hasn't been an edition of Fitzhugh Ludlow since 1975. The previous
 edition was in the mid-1800s. There hasn't been an edition of Bayard Taylor since the
 first edition of 1853. So these materials are not available generally at your public
 library. And as the debate on the social impact of cannabis accelerates, it's very important
 that we have access to these accounts by unbiased early observers of the phenomenon.
 This first reading of Bayard Taylor's The Lands of the Saracen presents the earliest
 American account of hashish use. The Lands of the Saracen was published in 1855 and set
 the model for hashish reportage throughout the rest of the 19th century and was a major
 influence on Fitzhugh Ludlow. I'm going to read chapter 10, The Visions of Hashish, which
 is the portion of the book in which most of the references to hashish taking are confined.
 This is Bayard Taylor, 1855. During my stay in Damascus, that insatiable curiosity which
 leads me to prefer the acquisition of all lawful knowledge through the channels of my
 own personal experience rather than in less satisfactory and less laborious ways, induced
 me to make a trial of the celebrated hashish, that remarkable drug which supplies the luxurious
 Syrian with dreams more alluring and more gorgeous than the Chinese extracts from his
 darling opium pipe. The use of hashish, which is a preparation with the dried leaves of
 the cannabis indica, has been familiar to the East for many centuries. During the Crusades,
 it was frequently used by the Saracen warriors to stimulate them to the work of slaughter,
 and from the Arabic term of hashashin, or eaters of hashish, as applied to them, the
 word assassin has been naturally derived. An infusion of the same plant gives to the
 drink called bhang, which is in common use throughout India and Malaysia, its peculiar
 properties. Thus prepared, it is a more fierce and fatal stimulant than the paste of sugar
 and spices to which the Turk resorts as the food of his voluptuous evening reveries. While
 its immediate effects seem to be more potent than those of opium, its habitual use, though
 attended with ultimate and permanent injury to the system, rarely results in such utter
 wreck of mind and body as that to which the votaries of the latter drug inevitably condemn
 themselves. A previous experience of the effects of hashish, which I took once and in a very
 mild form while in Egypt, was so peculiar in its character that my curiosity, instead
 of being satisfied, only prompted me the more to throw myself for once wholly under its
 influence. The sensations it then produced were those physically of exquisite lightness
 and airiness, mentally of a wonderfully keen perception of the ludicrous in the most simple
 and familiar objects. During the half-hour in which it lasted, I was at no time so far
 under its control that I could not, with the clearest perception, study the changes through
 which I passed. I noticed with careful attention the fine sensations which spread throughout
 the whole tissue of my nervous fiber, each thrill helping to divest my frame of its earthly
 and material nature, until my substance appeared to me no grosser than the vapors of the atmosphere.
 And while sitting in the calm of the Egyptian twilight, I expected to be lifted up and carried
 away by the first breeze that should ruffle the Nile. While this process was going on,
 the objects by which I was surrounded assumed a strange and whimsical expression. My pipe,
 the oars which my boatman plied, the turban worn by the captain, the water jars and culinary
 implements became in themselves so inexpressibly absurd and comical that I was provoked to
 a long fit of laughter. The hallucination died away as gradually as it came, leaving
 me overcome with a soft and pleasant drowsiness from which I sank into a deep, refreshing
 sleep.
 My companion and an English gentleman who with his wife was also residing in Antonio's
 pleasant caravan, Sarai, agreed to join me in the experiment. The draggerman of the latter
 was deputed to procure a sufficient quantity of the drug. He was a dark Egyptian speaking
 only the lingua franca of the East and asked me as he took the money and departed on his
 mission whether he should get hashish. "Peridere?" "O perdolire." "O peridere, of course," I
 answered, "and see that it be strong and fresh." It is customary with the Syrians to take a
 small portion immediately before the evening meal and it is thus diffused through the stomach
 and acts more gradually as well as more gently upon the system. As our dinner hour was at
 sunset, I proposed taking hashish at the time, but my friends, fearing that its operations
 might be more speedy upon fresh subjects and thus betray them into some absurdity in the
 presence of the other travelers, preferred waiting until after the meal. It was then
 agreed that we should retire to our room, which as it rose like a tower one story higher
 than the rest of the building was in a manner isolated and would screen us from observation.
 We commenced by taking a teaspoonful each of the mixture which Abdallah had procured.
 This was about the quantity I had taken in Egypt and as the effect then had been so slight,
 I judged that we ran no risk of taking an overdose. The strength of the drug, however,
 must have been far greater in this instance, for whereas I could in the former case distinguish
 no flavor but that of sugar and rose leaves, I now found the taste intensely bitter and
 repulsive to the palate. We allowed the paste to dissolve slowly on our tongues and sat
 some time quietly waiting the result, but having been taken upon a full stomach, its
 operation was hindered and after the lapse of nearly an hour we could not detect the
 least change in our feelings. My friends loudly expressed their conviction of the humbug of
 hashish, but I, unwilling to give up the experiment at this point, proposed that we should take
 an additional half-spoonful and follow it with a cup of hot tea, which if there were
 really any virtue in the preparation, could not fail to call it into action. This was
 done though not without some misgivings, as we were all ignorant of the precise quantity
 which constituted a dose and the limits within which the drug could be taken with safety.
 It was now ten o'clock. The streets of Damascus were gradually becoming silent and the fair
 city was bathed in the yellow luster of the Syrian moon. Only in the marble courtyard
 below us a few dragomen and moukaries lingered under the lemon trees beside the fountain
 in the center. I was seated alone nearly in the middle of the room talking with my friends,
 who were lounging upon a sofa placed in a sort of alcove at the farther end, when the
 same fine nervous thrill of which I have spoken suddenly shot through me. But this time it
 was accompanied by a burning sensation at the pit of the stomach, and instead of growing
 upon me with the gradual pace of healthy slumber and resolving me as before into air, it came
 with the intensity of a pang and shot throbbing along the nerves to the extremities of my
 body. The sense of limitation, of the confinement of our senses within the bounds of our own
 flesh and blood, instantly fell away. The walls of my frame were burst outward and tumbled
 into ruin, and without thinking what form I wore, losing sight even of an idea of form,
 I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent of space. The blood pulsed from my heart,
 sped through the uncounted leagues before it reached my extremities. The air drawn into
 my lungs expanded into seas of limpid ather, and the arch of my skull was broader than
 the vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain were the fathomless depths of
 blue. Clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven rolled them together, and there
 shone the orb of the sun. It was, though I thought not of that at the time, like a revelation
 of the mystery of omnipresence. It is difficult to describe this sensation or the rapidity
 with which it mastered me. In the state of mental exultation in which I was then plunged,
 all sensations as they rose suggested more or less coherent images. They presented themselves
 to me in a double form, one physical and therefore to a certain extent tangible, the other spiritual,
 and revealing itself in a succession of splendid metaphors. The physical feeling of extended
 being was accompanied by the image of an exploding meteor, not subsiding into darkness, but
 continuing to shoot from its center or nucleus, which corresponded to the burning spot at
 the pit of my stomach, incessant adumbrations of light that finally lost themselves in the
 infinity of space. To my mind, even now, this image is still the best illustration of my
 sensations, as I recall them, but I greatly doubt whether the reader will find it equally
 clear. My curiosity was now in a way of being satisfied. The spirit, demon, shall I not
 rather say, of Hashish had entire possession of me. I was cast upon the flood of his illusions
 and drifted helplessly whithersoever they might choose to bear me. The thrills which
 ran through my nervous system became more rapid and fierce, accompanied with sensations
 that steeped my whole being in an unutterable rapture. I was encompassed by a sea of light
 through which played the pure, harmonious colors that are born of light. While endeavoring
 in broken expressions to describe my feelings to my friends, who sat looking upon me incredulously,
 not yet having been affected by the drug, I suddenly found myself at the foot of the
 great pyramid of Cheops. The tapering courses of yellow limestone gleamed like gold in the
 sun, and the pile rose so high that it seemed to lean for support upon the blue arch of
 the sky. I wished to ascend it, and the wish alone placed me immediately upon its apex,
 lifted thousands of feet above the wheat fields and palm groves of Egypt. I cast my eyes downward,
 and to my astonishment saw that it was built not of limestone, but of huge square plugs
 of cavendish tobacco. Words cannot paint the overwhelming sense of the ludicrous which
 I then experienced. I writhed on my chair in an agony of laughter, which was only relieved
 by the vision melting away like a dissolving view. Tell, out of my confusion of indistinct
 images and fragments of images, another and more powerful vision arose. The more vividly
 I recall the scene which followed, the more carefully I restore its different features
 and separate the many threads of sensation which wove it into one glorious web, the more
 I despair of representing its exceeding glory. I was moving over the desert, not upon the
 rocking dromedary, but seated in a bark made of mother-of-pearl and studded with jewels
 of surpassing luster. The sand was of grains of gold, and my heels slid through them without
 sound or jar. The air was radiant with excessive light, though no sun was to be seen. I inhaled
 the most delicious perfumes, and harmonies such as Beethoven may have heard in dreams
 but never wrote floated around me. The atmosphere itself was light, odour, music, and each and
 all sublimated beyond anything the sober senses are capable of receiving. Before me, for a
 thousand leagues as it seemed, stretched a vista of rainbows whose colours gleamed with
 the splendour of gems, arches of living amethyst, sapphire, emerald, topaz, and ruby. By thousands
 and tens of thousands they flew past me as my dazzling barge sped down the magnificent
 arcade, yet the vista still stretched as far as ever before me. I reveled in a sensuous
 Elysium which was perfect because no sense was left ungratified, but beyond all my mind
 was filled with a boundless feeling of triumph. My journey was that of a conqueror, not of
 a conqueror who subdues his race either by love or by will, for I forgot that man existed,
 but one victorious over the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of nature, the spirits
 of light, colour, odour, sound, and motion were my slaves, and having these I was master
 of the universe. Those who are endowed to any extent with the imaginative faculty must
 have at least once in their lives experienced feelings which may give them a clue to the
 exalted sensuous raptures of my triumphal march. The view of a sublime mountain landscape,
 the hearing of a grand orchestral symphony, or of a choral abhorred by the full-voiced
 organ, or even the beauty and luxury of a cloudless summer day suggests emotions similar
 in kind, yet less intense. They took a warmth and glow from that pure animal joy which degrades
 not but spiritualizes and ennobles our material part and which differs from cold, abstract,
 intellectual enjoyment as the flaming diamond of the Orient differs from the icicle of the
 North. Those finer senses which occupy a middle ground between our animal and intellectual
 appetites were suddenly developed to a pitch beyond what I had ever dreamed, and being
 thus at one and the same time gratified to the fullest extent of their preternatural
 capacity, the result was a single harmonious sensation to describe which human language
 has no epithet. Mahatma's paradise with its palaces of ruby and emerald, its airs of musk
 and cassia, and its rivers colder than snow and sweeter than honey would have been a poor
 and mean terminus for my arcade of rainbows. Yet in the character of this paradise, in
 the gorgeous fancies of the Arabian nights, in the glow and luxury of all Oriental poetry,
 I now recognize more or less the agency of hashish. The fullness of my rapture expanded
 the sense of time, and though the whole vision was probably no more than five minutes in
 passing through my mind, years seemed to have elapsed while I shot under the dazzling myriads
 of rainbow arches. By and by the rainbows, the bark of pearl and jewels, and the desert
 of golden sand vanished, and still bathed in light and perfume, I found myself in a
 land of green and flowery lawns, divided by hills of gently undulating outline. But, although
 the vegetation was the richest of earth, there were neither streams nor fountains to be seen,
 and the people who came from the hills with brilliant garments that shone in the sun besought
 me to give them the blessing of water. Their hands were full of branches of the coral honeysuckle
 in bloom. These I took, and breaking off the flowers one by one set them in the earth.
 The slender trumpet-like tubes immediately became shafts of masonry and sank deep into
 the earth. The lip of the flower changed into a circular mouth of rose-colored marble, and
 the people, leaning over its brink, lowered their pitchers to the bottom with cords and
 drew them up again, filled to the brim and dripping with honey. The most remarkable feature
 of these illusions was that at that time, when I was most completely under their influence,
 I knew myself to be seated in the tower of Antonio's hotel in Damascus, knew that I had
 taken hashish, and that the strange, gorgeous, and ludicrous fantasies which possessed me
 were the effect of it. At the very instant that I looked upon the valley of the Nile
 from the pyramid, slid over the desert, or created my marvelous wells in that beautiful
 pastoral country, I saw the furniture of my room, its mosaic pavement, the quaint Saracenic
 niches in the walls, the painted and gilded beams of the ceiling and the couch in the
 recess before me with my two companions watching me. Both sensations were simultaneous and
 equally palpable. While I was most given up to the magnificent delusion, I saw its cause
 and felt its absurdity most clearly. Metaphysicians say that the mind is incapable of performing
 two operations at the same time, and may attempt to explain this phenomenon by supposing a
 rapid and incessant vibration of the perceptions between the two states. This explanation,
 however, is not satisfactory to me, for not more clearly does a skillful musician with
 the same breath blow two distinct musical notes from a bugle than I was conscious of
 two distinct conditions of being in the same moment. Yet, singular as it may seem, neither
 conflicted with the other. My enjoyment of the visions was complete and absolute, undisturbed
 by the faintest doubt of their reality, while in some other chamber of my brain, reason
 sat coolly watching them and heaping the liveliest ridicule on their fantastic features. One
 set of nerves was thrilled with the bliss of the gods, while another was convulsed with
 unquenchable laughter at that very bliss. My highest ecstasies could not bear down and
 silence the weight of my ridicule, which in its turn was powerless to prevent me from
 running into other and more gorgeous absurdities. I was double, not swan and shadow, but rather
 sphinx-like, human and beast, a true sphinx. I was a riddle and a mystery to myself.
 The drug, which had been retarded in its operation on account of being taken after a meal, now
 began to make itself more powerfully felt. The visions were more grotesque than ever,
 but less agreeable, and there was a painful tension throughout my nervous system, the
 effect of overstimulus. I was a mass of transparent jelly, and a confectioner poured me into a
 twisted mould. I threw my chair aside and writhed and tortured myself for some time
 to force my loose substance into the mould, at last when I had so far succeeded that only
 one foot remained outside. It was lifted off, and another mould of still more crooked and
 intricate shape substituted. I have no doubt that the contortions through which I went
 to accomplish the end of my gelatinous destiny would have been extremely ludicrous to a spectator,
 but to me they were painful and disagreeable. The sober half of me went into fits of laughter
 over them, and through that laughter my vision shifted into another scene. I had laughed
 until my eyes overflowed profusely. Every drop that fell immediately became a large
 loaf of bread, and tumbled upon the shop floor of a baker in the bazaar at Damascus. The
 more I laughed, the faster the loaves fell, until such a pile was raised about the baker
 that I could hardly see the top of his head. "The man will be suffocated!" I cried,
 "but if he were to die I cannot stop!" My perceptions now became more dim and confused.
 I felt that I was in the grasp of some giant force, and in the glimmering of my fading
 reason grew earnestly alarmed, for the terrible stress under which my frame laboured increased
 every moment. A fierce and furious heat radiated from my stomach throughout my system. My mouth
 and throat were as dry and as hard as if made of brass, and my tongue, it seemed to me,
 was a bar of rusty iron. I seized a pitcher of water and drank long and deeply, but I
 might as well have drunk so much air, for not only did it impart no moisture, but my
 palate and throat gave me no intelligence of having drunk at all. I stood in the centre
 of the room, brandishing my arms convulsively and heaving sighs that seemed to shatter my
 whole being. "Will no one," I cried in distress, "cast out this devil that has possession of
 me?" I no longer saw the room nor my friends, but I heard one of them saying, "It must be
 real!" He could not counterfeit such an expression as that, but it don't look much like pleasure.
 Immediately afterwards there was a scream of the wildest laughter, and my countryman
 sprang upon the floor, exclaiming, "Oh, ye gods, I am a locomotive!" This was his ruling
 hallucination, and for the space of two or three hours he continued to pace to and fro
 with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent jets, and when he spoke, dividing
 his words into syllables, each of which he brought out with a jerk, at the same time
 turning his hands at his sides as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels. The Englishman,
 as soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to his own room,
 and what the nature of his visions were we never learned, for he refused to tell, and
 moreover enjoined the strictest silence on his wife. By this time it was nearly midnight.
 I had passed through the paradise of Haschisch and was plunged at once into its fiercest
 hell. In my ignorance I had taken what I have since learned would have been a sufficient
 portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my curiosity. The excited
 blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the roaring of mighty waters. It was
 projected into my eyes until I could no longer see. It beeped thickly in my ears and so throbbed
 in my heart that I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
 placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations, but there were two hearts,
 one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and the other with a slow, dull
 motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to the brim with blood, and streams of blood
 were pouring from my eyes. I felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened
 desperate feeling I fled from the room and walked over the flat terraced roof of the
 house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the demon, and my face
 to become wild, lean, and haggard. Some lines which had struck me years before in reading
 Mrs. Browning's Rhymes of the Duchess May flashed into my mind, and the horse in stark
 despair, with his front hooves poised in air, on the last verge rears a mane, and he hangs,
 he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in, and he shivers head and hoof, and the
 flakes of foam fall off, and his face grows fierce and thin. That picture of animal terror
 and agony was mine. I was the horse hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the
 next moment to be born, sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily I raised my hand to feel the
 leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh, horror! The flesh had fallen from my bones, and it
 was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders. With one bound I sprang to the parapet and
 looked into the silent courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
 moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong was the question I proposed to myself, but through
 the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than my fear of death. There was an invisible
 hand at my breast which pushed me away from the brink. I made my way back to the room
 in a state of the keenest suffering. My companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro
 and jerking out his syllables with a disjointed accent peculiar to a steam engine. His mouth
 had turned to brass like mine, and he raised the picture to his lips in an attempt to worsen
 it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the picture down again with a yell of laughter,
 crying out, "How can I take water into my boiler while I am letting off steam?" But
 I was too far gone to feel the absurdity of this or his other exclamations. I was sinking
 deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable agony and despair, for although I was not
 conscious of any real pain in any part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves
 had been subjected filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
 more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will with which I
 struggled against the demon became gradually weaker, and I felt that I soon should be powerless
 in his hands. Every effort to preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal
 fear, lest what I now experienced was insanity and would hold mastery over me forever. The
 thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this dread. I knew that
 in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was born fearfully near the dark gulf, and
 the thought that at such a time both reason and will were leaving my brain filled me with
 an agony the depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
 myself on my bed with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears, my heart throbbing
 with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my life, my throat dry as a pot shard,
 and my stiffened tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth, resisting no longer but awaiting
 my fate with the apathy of despair. My companion was now approaching the same condition, but
 as the effect of the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was
 more clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him, and reproached
 me vehemently because I lay there, silent, motionless, and apparently careless of his
 danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought. "He thinks he is dying, but what is death
 to madness? Let him die! A thousand deaths were more easily born than the pangs I suffer."
 While I was sufficiently conscious to hear his explanations, they only provoked my keen
 anger, but after a time my senses became clouded and I sank into a stupor. As near as I can
 judge, this must have been three o'clock in the morning, rather more than five hours after
 the hashish had begun to take effect. I lay thus all the following day and night in a
 state of grey, blank oblivion, broken only by a single, wandering gleam of consciousness.
 I recollect hearing Francois's voice. He told me afterwards that I arose, attempted to dress
 myself, drank two cups of coffee, and then fell back into the same death-like stupor.
 But of all this I did not retain the least knowledge. On the morning of the second day,
 after a sleep of thirty hours, I awoke again to the world with a system utterly prostrate
 and unstrung and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I knew where
 I was and what had happened to me, but all I saw still remained unreal and shadowy. There
 was no taste in what I ate, no refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful
 effort to comprehend what was said to me and return a coherent answer. Will and reason
 had come back, but they still sat unsteadily upon their thrones.
 My friend, who was much further advanced in his recovery, accompanied me to the adjoining
 bath which I hoped would assist in restoring me. It was with great difficulty that I preserved
 the outward appearance of consciousness. In spite of myself, a veil now and then fell
 over my mind, and after wandering for years, as it seemed, in some distant world, I awoke
 with a shock to find myself in the steamy halls of the bath with a brown Syrian polishing
 my limbs. I suspect that my language must have been rambling and incoherent, and that
 the menials who had me in charge understood my condition, for as soon as I stretched myself
 upon the couch which follows the bath, a glass of very acid sorbet was presented me, and
 after drinking it, I experienced instant relief. Still, the spell was not wholly broken,
 and for two or three days I continued, subject to frequent involuntary fits of absence which
 made me insensible for the time, to all that was passing around me. I walked the streets
 of Damascus with a strange consciousness that I was in some other place at the same time,
 and with a constant effort to reunite my divided perceptions. Previous to the experiment, we
 had decided on making a bargain with the Sheikh for the journey to Palmyra. The state, however,
 in which we now found ourselves obliged us to relinquish the plan. Perhaps the excitement
 of a forced march across the desert and a conflict with the hostile Arabs, which was
 quite likely to happen, might have assisted us in throwing off the baneful effects of
 the drug, but all the charm which lay in the name of Palmyra and the romantic interest
 of the trip was gone. I was now without courage and without energy, and nothing remained for
 me but to leave Damascus. Yet, fearful as my rash experiment proved to me, I did not
 regret having made it. It revealed to me deeps of rapture and of suffering which my natural
 faculties never could have sounded. It has taught me the majesty of human reason and
 of human will, even in the weakest, and the awful peril of tampering with that which assails
 our integrity. I have here faithfully and fully written out my experience on account
 of the lesson which it may convey to others. If I have unfortunately failed in my design
 and have but awakened that restless curiosity which I have endeavored to forestall, let
 me beg all who are thereby led to repeat the experiment upon themselves that they be content
 to take the portion of hashish which is considered sufficient for one man, and not, like me,
 swallow enough for six.
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 >> "Perilous Play."
 If someone does not propose a new and interesting amusement, I shall die of ennui,
 said pretty Belle Daventry in a tone of despair.
 I have read all my books, used up all my Berlin wools, and it's too warm to go to town for more.
 No one can go sailing yet as the tide is out.
 We are all nearly tired to death of cards, croquet, and gossip.
 So what shall we do to while away this endless afternoon?
 Dr. Meredith, I command you to invent and propose a new game in five minutes.
 To hear is to obey, replied the young man, who lay in the grass at her feet
 as he submissively slapped his forehead and fell a-thinking with all his might.
 Holding up her finger to preserve silence, Belle pulled out her watch and waited with an expectant smile.
 The rest of the young party, who were indolently scattered about under the elms, drew nearer and brightened visibly.
 For Dr. Meredith's inventive powers were well known, and something refreshingly novel might be expected from him.
 One gentleman did not stir, but then he lay within earshot
 and merely turned his fine eyes from the sea to the group before him.
 His glance rested a moment on Belle's piquant figure, for she looked very pretty with her bright hair blowing in the wind,
 one plump white arm extended to keep order, and one little foot in a distracting slipper just visible below the voluminous folds of her dress.
 Then the glance passed to another figure, sitting somewhat apart in a cloud of white muslin,
 for an airy Bernice floated from head to shoulders, showing only a singularly charming face.
 Pale and yet brilliant, for the southern eyes were magnificent, the clear olive cheeks contrasted well with darkest hair,
 lips like a pomegranate flower, and delicate straight brows as mobile as the lips.
 A cluster of crimson flowers, half falling from the loose black braids,
 and a golden bracelet of Arabian coins on the slender wrist were the only ornaments she wore,
 and became her better than the fashionable frippery of her companions.
 A book lay on her lap, but her eyes, full of a passionate melancholy, were fixed on the sea,
 which glittered around an island green and flowery as a summer paradise.
 Rose St. Just was as beautiful as her Spanish mother, but had inherited the pride and reserve of her English father,
 and that pride was the thorn which repelled lovers from the human flower.
 Mark Dunn sighed as he looked, and as if the sigh, low as it was, roused her from her reverie,
 Rose flashed a quick glance at him, took up her book, and went on reading the legend of the Lotus Eaters.
 "Time is up now, Doctor," cried Belle, pocketing her watch with a flourish.
 "Ready to report," answered Meredith, sitting up and producing a little box of tortoise shell and gold.
 "How mysterious! What is it? Let me see first," and Belle removed the cover, looking like an inquisitive child.
 "Only bonbons. How stupid! That won't do, sir. We don't want to be fed with sugar plums. We demand to be amused."
 "Eat six of these despised bonbons, and you will be amused in a new, delicious, and wonderful manner," said the young Doctor,
 laying half a dozen on a green leaf and offering them to her.
 "Why, what are they?" she asked, looking at him askance. "Cassis? Did you never hear of it?"
 "Oh, yes. It's that Indian stuff which brings one fantastic visions, isn't it?
 I've always wanted to see and taste it, and now I will," cried Belle, nibbling at one of the bean-shaped complets with its green heart.
 "I advise you not to try it. People do all sorts of queer things when they take it."
 "I wouldn't for the world," said a prudent young lady, warningly, as all examined the box and its contents.
 "Six can do no harm, I give you my word. I take twenty before I can enjoy myself, and some people even more.
 I've tried many experiments, both on the sick and the well, and nothing ever happened amiss,
 though the demonstrations were immensely interesting," said Meredith, eating his sugar plums with a tranquil air,
 which was very convincing to the others. "How shall I feel?" asked Belle, beginning on her second comfort.
 "A heavenly dreaminess comes over one, in which they move as if on air. Everything is calm and lovely to them.
 No pain, no care, no fear of anything, and while it lasts, one feels like an angel, half asleep."
 "But if one takes too much, how then?" said a deep voice behind the doctor.
 "Hum, well, that's not so pleasant, unless one likes phantoms, frenzies, and a touch of nightmare,
 which seems to last a thousand years." "Ever try it, Don," replied Meredith,
 turning toward the speaker, who was now leaning on his arm and looking interested.
 "Never. I'm not a good subject for experiments, too nervous a temperament to play pranks with.
 I should say ten would be about your number. Less than that seldom affects men.
 Ladies go off sooner and don't need so many. Miss St. Just, may I offer you a taste of Elysium?
 I owe my success to you," said the doctor, approaching her deferentially.
 "To me? And how?" she asked, lifting her large eyes with a slight smile.
 "I was in the depths of despair when my eye caught the title of your book, and I was saved,
 for I remembered that I had hashish in my pocket."
 "Are you a lotus eater?" she said, permitting him to lay the six charmed bonbons on the page.
 "My faith, no. I use it for my patients. It is very efficacious in nervous disorders,
 and is getting to be quite a pet remedy with us. I do not want to forget the past, but to read the future.
 Will hashish help me to do that?" asked Rose, with an eager look, which made the young man flush,
 wondering if he bore any part of her hopes of that veiled future.
 "Alas, no. I wish it could, for I too long to know my fate," he answered, very low,
 as he looked into the lovely face before him.
 The soft glance changed to one of cool indifference, and Rose gently brushed the hashish off her book,
 saying, with a little gesture of dismissal, "Then I have no desire to taste Elysium."
 The white morsels dropped into the grass at her feet, but Dr. Meredith let them lie,
 and, turning sharply, went back to sun himself in Belle's smiles.
 "I've eaten all mine, and so has Evelyn. Mr. Norton will see goblins, I know, for he has taken quantities.
 I'm glad of it, for he does not believe in it, and I want to have him convinced by making a spectacle of himself
 for our amusement," said Belle, in great spirits at the new plan.
 "When does the trance come on?" asked Evelyn, a shy girl, already rather alarmed at what she had done.
 "About three hours after you take your dose, though the time varies with different people.
 Your pulse will rise, heart beat quickly, eyes darken and dilate,
 and an uplifted sensation will pervade you generally.
 Then these symptoms change, and the bliss begins.
 I've seen people sit or lie in one position for hours, wrapped in a delicious dream,
 and wake from it as tranquil as if they had not had a nerve in their bodies."
 "How charming! I'll take some every time I'm worried.
 Let me see, it's now four, so our trances will come about seven,
 and we will devote the evening to manifestations," said Belle.
 "Come, Dunn, try it. We are all going in for the fun.
 Here's your dose," and Meredith tossed him a dozen bonbons, twisted up in a bit of paper.
 "No, thank you. I know myself too well to risk it.
 If you are all going to turn hashish eaters, you'll need someone to take care of you.
 So I'll keep sober," tossing the little parcel back.
 It fell short, and the doctor, too lazy to pick it up, let it lie, merely saying with a laugh,
 "Well, I advise any bashful man to take hashish when he wants to offer his heart to any fair lady,
 for it will give him the courage of a hero, and the eloquence of a poet, and the ardor of an Italian.
 Remember that, gentlemen, and come to me when the crisis approaches."
 "Does it conquer the pride, rouse the pity, and soften the hard hearts of the fair sex?" asked Dunn.
 "I dare say now is your time to settle the fact, for here are two ladies who have imbibed,
 and in three hours will be in such a seraphic state of mind that no will be an impossibility to them."
 "Oh, mercy on us! What have we done? If that's the case, I shall shut myself up till my foolish fit is over.
 Rose, you haven't taken any. I beg you to mount guard over me, and see that I don't disgrace myself by any nonsense."
 "Promise me that you will!" cried Belle, in half real, half feigned alarm at the consequences of her prank.
 "I promise," said Rose, and floated down the green path as noiselessly as a white cloud, with a curious smile on her lips.
 "Don't tell any of the rest what we have done, but after tea let us go into the grove and compare notes," said Norton,
 as Dunn strolled away to the beach, and the voices of approaching friends broke the summer quiet.
 At tea the initiated glanced covertly at one another, and saw, or fancied they saw, the effects of the hashish,
 in a certain suppressed excitement of manner and unusually brilliant eyes.
 Belle laughed often, a silvery, ringing laugh pleasant to hear.
 But when complimented on her good spirits, she looked distressed, and said she could not help her merriment.
 Meredith was quite calm, but rather dreamy; Evelyn was pale, and her next neighbor heard her heartbeat.
 Norton talked incessantly, but as he talked uncommonly well, no one suspected anything.
 Dunn and Miss St. Just watched the others with interest, and were very quiet, especially Rose,
 who scarcely spoke, but smiled her sweetest, and looked very lovely.
 The moon rose early, and the experimenters slipped away to the grove, leaving the outsiders on the lawn as usual.
 Some bold spirit asked Rose to sing, and she at once complied,
 pouring out Spanish airs in a voice that melted the hearts of her audience,
 so full of fiery sweetness or tragic pathos was it.
 Dunn seemed quite carried away, and lay with his face in the grass, to hide the tears that would come,
 till, afraid of openly disgracing himself, he started up and hurried down to the little wharf,
 where he sat alone, listening to the music with a countenance which plainly revealed to the stars the passion which possessed him.
 The sound of loud laughter from the grove, followed by entire silence,
 caused him to wonder what demonstrations were taking place, and half resolved to go and see.
 But that enchanting voice held him captive, even when a boat put off mysteriously from a point nearby,
 and sailed away like a phantom through the twilight.
 Half an hour afterward, a white figure came down the path, and Rose's voice broke in on his midsummer night's dream.
 The moon shone clearly now, and showed him the anxiety in her face, as she said hurriedly,
 "Where is Belle?" "Gone sailing, I believe." "How could you let her go? She was not fit to take care of herself."
 "I forgot that." "So did I, but I promised to watch over her, and I must."
 "Which way did they go?" demanded Rose, wrapping the white mantle about her, and running her eye over the little boats moored below.
 "Will you follow her?" "Yes." "I'll be your guide, then. They went toward the lighthouse. It is too far to row. I am at your service."
 "Oh, say yes," cried Dunn, leaping into his own skiff and offering his hand persuasively.
 She hesitated an instant, and looked at him. He was always pale, and the moonlight seemed to increase this pallor,
 but his hat brim hid his eyes, and his voice was very quiet.
 A loud peal of laughter floated over the water, and as if the sound decided her, she gave him her hand and entered the boat.
 Dunn smiled triumphantly as he shook out the sail, which caught the freshening wind, and sent the boat dancing along a path of light.
 How lovely it was! All the indescribable allurements of a perfect summer night surrounded them—
 balmy airs, enchanting moonlight, distant music, and close at hand the delicious atmosphere of love,
 which made itself felt in the eloquent silences that fell between them.
 Rose seemed to yield to the subtle charm, and leaned back on the cushioned seat with her beautiful head uncovered,
 her face full of dreamy softness, and her hands lying loosely clasped before her.
 She seldom spoke, showed no further anxiety for Belle, and soon seemed to forget the object of her search,
 so absorbed was she in some delicious thought which wrapped her in its peace.
 Dunn sat opposite, flushed now, restless and excited, for his eyes glittered.
 The hand on the rudder shook, and his voice sounded intense and passionate, even in the utterance of the simplest words.
 He talked continually, and with an unusual brilliancy, for, though a man of many accomplishments,
 he was too indolent or too fastidious to exert himself except among his peers.
 Rose seemed to look without seeing, to listen without hearing, and though she smiled blissfully,
 the smiles were evidently not for him.
 On they sailed, scarcely heeding the bank of black cloud piled up in the horizon,
 the rising wind, or the silence which proved their solitude.
 Rose moved once or twice, and lifted her hand as if to speak, but sank back, mutely,
 and the hand fell again as if it had not energy enough to enforce her wish.
 A cloud sweeping over the moon, a distant growl of thunder, and the slight gust that struck the sail seemed to rouse her.
 Dunn was singing now, like one inspired, his hat at his feet, hair in disorder,
 and a strangely rapturous expression in his eyes, which were fixed on her.
 She started, shivered, and seemed to recover herself with an effort.
 "Where are they?" she asked, looking vainly for the island heights and the other boat.
 "They have gone to the beach, I fancy, but we will follow."
 As Dunn leaned forward to speak, she saw his face, and shrank back with a sudden flush,
 for in it she read clearly what she had felt, yet doubted until now.
 He saw the tell-tale blush and gesture, and said impetuously,
 "You know it now. You cannot deceive me longer, or daunt me with your pride.
 Rose, I love you, and dare tell you so tonight.
 Not now, not here. I will not listen. Turn back, and be silent. I entreat you, Mr. Dunn," she said.
 He laughed a defiant laugh, and took her hand in his, which was burning and throbbing with the rapid heat of his pulse.
 "No, I will have my answer here and now, and never turn back till you give it.
 You have been a thorny rose, and given me many wounds.
 I'll be paid for my heartache with sweet words, tender looks, and frank confessions of love.
 For proud as you are, you do love me, and dare not deny it."
 Something in his tone terrified her. She snatched her hand away and drew beyond his reach,
 trying to speak calmly, and to meet coldly the ardent glances of the eyes,
 which were strangely darkened and dilated with uncontrollable emotion.
 "You forget yourself. I shall give no answer to an avowal made in such terms.
 Take me home instantly," she said in a tone of anger.
 "Confess you love me, Rose." "Never."
 "Ah, I'll have a kinder answer, or..."
 "You must give me more attention." "...done half rose, and put out his hand to grasp and draw her to him."
 But the cry she uttered seemed to arrest him with a sort of shock.
 "Control yourself." He dropped into his seat, passed his hands over his eyes,
 and shivered nervously as he muttered in an altered tone.
 "I meant nothing. It's the moonlight. Sit down. I'll control myself.
 Upon my soul I will." "Are you mad?"
 "If you do not, I shall go overboard."
 "Are you mad, sir?" cried Rose, trembling with indignation.
 "I am just foolish." "Then I shall follow you, for I am mad, Rose, with love."
 "Hashish." His voice sank to a whisper,
 but the last word thrilled along her nerves as no sound of fear had ever done before.
 An instant she regarded him with a look which took in every sign of unnatural excitement.
 Then she clasped her hands with an implorable gesture, saying in a tone of despair,
 "Why did I come? How will it end?
 Oh, Mark, take me home before it is too late.
 Hush, be calm. Don't thwart me, or I may get wild again.
 My thoughts are not clear, but I understand you.
 There, take my knife, and if I forget myself, kill me.
 Don't go overboard. You are too beautiful to die, my Rose."
 He threw her the slender hunting knife he wore,
 looked at her a moment with a far-off look,
 and trimmed the sail like one moving in a dream.
 Rose took the weapon, wrapped her cloak closely about her,
 and crouching as far away as possible, kept her eye on him,
 with a face in which watchful terror contended with some secret trouble and bewilderment
 more powerful than her fear.
 The boat moved round and began to beat up against wind and tide.
 Spray flew from her bow, the sail bent and strained in the gusts that struck it with perilous spitfulness.
 The moon was nearly hidden by scudding clouds,
 and one half the sky was black with the gathering storm.
 Rose looked from threatening heavens to treacherous sea,
 and tried to be ready for any danger,
 but her calm had been sadly broken, and she could not recover it.
 Dunn sat motionless, uttering no word of encouragement,
 though the frequent flaws almost tore the rope in his hand,
 and the water often dashed over him.
 "Are we in any danger?" asked Rose at last, unable to bear the silence,
 for he looked like a ghostly helmsman seen by the fitful light,
 pale now, wide-eyed and speechless.
 "Yes, great danger."
 "I thought you were a skillful boatman."
 "I am when I am myself.
 Now I am rapidly losing the control of my will,
 and the strange quiet is coming over me.
 If I had been alone, I should have given up sooner,
 but for your sake I have kept on."
 "Can't you work the boat?" asked Rose,
 terror struck by the changed tone of his voice,
 the slow, uncertain movements of his hands.
 "No, I see everything through a thick cloud."
 "Your voice sounds far away,
 and my one desire is to lay my head down and sleep."
 "Let me steer. I can."
 "I must," she cried, springing toward him and laying her hand on the rudder.
 He smiled and kissed the little hand, saying dreamily,
 "You could not hold it a minute.
 Sit by me, love. Let us turn the boat again
 and drift away together, anywhere, anywhere out of the world."
 "Oh, heaven, what will become of us?"
 And Rose wrung her hands in real despair.
 "Mr. Dunn, Mark, dear Mark,
 rouse yourself and listen to me.
 Turn, as you say, for it is certain death to go on.
 Turn and let us drift down to the lighthouse.
 They will hear and help us.
 Quick, take down the sail.
 Get out the oars, and let us try to reach there before the storm breaks."
 As Rose spoke, he obeyed her like a dumb animal.
 Love for her was stronger even than the instinct of self-preservation,
 and for her sake he fought against the treacherous lethargy
 which was swiftly overpowering him.
 The sail was lowered, the boat brought round,
 and with little help from the ill-pulled oars,
 it drifted rapidly out to sea with the ebbing tide.
 As she caught her breath after this dangerous maneuver was accomplished,
 Rose asked in a quiet tone she vainly tried to render natural,
 "How much hashish did you take?"
 "All that Meredith threw me? Too much.
 But I was possessed to do it, so I hid the roll and tried it," he answered,
 peering at her with a weird laugh.
 "Let us talk. Our safety lies in keeping awake,
 and I dare not let you sleep," continued Rose,
 dashing water on her own hot forehead with a sort of desperation.
 "Say you love me. That would wake me from my lost sleep, I think.
 I have hoped and feared, waited and suffered so long.
 You are so awful and answer, Rose."
 "I do, but I should not own it now."
 So low was the soft reply he scarcely heard it,
 but he felt it and made a strong effort to break from the hateful spell that bound him.
 Leaning forward, he tried to read her face in a ray of moonlight breaking through the clouds.
 He saw a new and tender warmth in her, for all the pride was gone,
 and no fear marred the eloquence of those soft southern eyes.
 "Kiss me, Rose, then I shall believe it.
 I feel lost in a dream, and you, so changed, so kind, may be only a fair phantom.
 Kiss me, love, and make it real."
 As if swayed by a power more potent than her will, Rose bent to meet his lips,
 but the ardent pressure seemed to startle her from a momentary oblivion of everything but love.
 She covered up her face and sank down, as if overwhelmed with shame,
 sobbing through passionate tears.
 "Oh, what am I doing? I am mad, for I too have taken hashish."
 What he answered she never heard, for a rattling peal of thunder drowned his voice,
 and then the storm broke loose.
 Rain fell in torrents, the wind blew fiercely, the sky and sea were black as ink,
 and the boat tossed from wave to wave, almost at their mercy,
 giving herself up for lost.
 Rose crept to her lover's side and clung there,
 conscious only that they would bide together through the perils their own folly brought them.
 Dunn's excitement was quite gone now.
 He sat like a statue, shielding the frail creature whom he loved with a smile on his face,
 which looked awfully emotionless when the lightning gave her glimpses of its white immobility.
 Drenched, exhausted, and half senseless with danger, fear, and exposure,
 Rose saw at last a welcome glimmer through the gloom, and roused herself to cry for help.
 "Mark, wake and help me! Shout for God's sake! Shout and call them,
 for we are lost if we drift by!" she cried, lifting his head from his breast
 and forcing him to see the brilliant beacon streaming far across the troubled water.
 He understood her, and springing up, uttered shout after shout like one demented.
 Fortunately, the storm had lulled a little.
 The lighthouse keeper heard and answered.
 Rose seized the helm, dunn the oars, and with one frantic effort guided the boat into quieter waters,
 where it was met by the keeper, who towed it to the rocky nook which served as harbor.
 The moment a strong, steady face met her eyes, and a gruff, cheery voice hailed her,
 Rose gave way, and was carried up to the house,
 looking more like a beautiful drowned Ophelia than a living woman.
 "Here's Sally. See to the poor thing. She's had a rough time on it.
 I'll take care of her, sweetheart, and a nice job I'll have, I reckon.
 For if he ain't mad or drunk, he's had a stroke of lightning,
 and looks as if he wouldn't get his hearing in a hurry," said the old man,
 as he housed his unexpected guests, and stood staring at dunn, who looked about him like one dazed.
 "You just turn and yonder and sleep it off, mate.
 I'll take the lady, and ride up your boat in the morning," the old man added.
 "Be kind to Rose. I frightened her. I'll not forget you."
 "Yes, let me sleep and get over this cursed folly as soon as possible," muttered this strange visitor.
 Dunn threw himself down on the rough couch and tried to sleep,
 but every nerve was overstrained, every pulse beating like a trip hammer,
 and everything about him was intensified and exaggerated with awful power.
 The thundershower seemed a wild hurricane, the quaint room a wilderness peopled with tormenting phantoms,
 and all the events of his life passed before him in an endless procession which nearly maddened him.
 The old man looked weird and gigantic, his own voice sounded shrill and discordant,
 and the ceaseless murmur of Rose's incoherent wanderings haunted him like parts of a grotesque but dreadful dream.
 All night he lay motionless, with staring eyes, feverish lips, and a mind on the rack,
 for the delicate machinery which had been tampered with revenged the wrong by torturing the foolish experimenter.
 All night Rose wept and sang, talked and cried for help in a piteous state of nervous excitement,
 for with her the trance came first, and the after-agitation was increased by the events of the evening.
 She slept at last, lulled by the old woman's motherly care, and Dunn was spared one tormenting fear,
 for he dreaded the consequences of this folly on her more than upon himself.
 As day dawned he rose, haggard and faint and staggered out.
 At the door he met the keeper, who stopped him to report that the boat was in order and a fair day coming.
 Seeing doubt and perplexity in the old man's eyes, Dunn told him the truth,
 and added that he was going to the beach for a plunge, hoping by that simple tonic to restore his unstrung nerves.
 He came back feeling like himself again, except for a dull headache and a heavy sense of remorse weighing on his spirits,
 for he distinctly recollected all the events of the night.
 The old woman made him eat and drink, and in an hour he felt ready for the homeward trip.
 Rose slept late, and when she woke soon recovered herself, for her dose had been a small one.
 When she had breakfasted and made a hasty toilet, she professed herself anxious to return at once.
 She dreaded yet long to see Dunn, and when the time came armed herself with pride,
 feeling all a woman's shame at what had passed, and resolving to feign forgetfulness of the incidents of the previous night.
 Pale and cold as a statue, she met him, but the moment he began to say humbly, "Forgive me, Rose,"
 she silenced him with an imperious gesture in the command, "Don't speak of it.
 I only remember that it was very horrible, and wish to forget it all as soon as possible."
 "All, Rose?" he asked significantly. "Yes, all. No one would care to recall the follies of a hashish dream," she answered,
 turning hastily to hide the scarlet flush that would rise, and the eyes that would fall before his own.
 "I can never forget, but I will be silent if you bid me. I do. Let us go. What will they think at the island?
 Mr. Dunn, give me your promise to tell no one, now or ever, that I tried that dangerous experiment.
 I will guard your secret also." She spoke eagerly, and looked up imploringly.
 "I promise," and he gave her his hand, holding her own with a wistful glance, till she drew it away and begged him to take her home.
 "Please, let's go now." Leaving hearty thanks and a generous token of their gratitude, they sailed away with a fair wind,
 finding in the freshness of the morning a speedy cure for tired bodies and excited minds.
 They said little, but it was impossible for Rose to preserve her coldness.
 The memory of the past night broke down her pride, and Dunn's tender glances touched her heart.
 She half hid her face behind her hand, and tried to compose herself for the scene to come,
 for as she approached the island, she saw Belle and her party waiting for them on the shore.
 "Oh, Mr. Dunn, scream me from their eyes and questions as much as you can.
 I am so worn out and nervous. I shall betray myself. You will help me?"
 And she turned to him with a confiding look, strangely at variance with her usual calm self-possession.
 "I'll shield you with my life if you tell me why you took the hashi," she said, bent on knowing his fate.
 "I hoped it would make me soft and lovable, like other women. I'm tired of being a lonely statue," she faltered,
 as if the truth was wrung from her by a power stronger than her will.
 "And I took it to gain courage to tell my love, 'Rose, we have been near death together.
 Let us share life together, and neither of us be any more lonely or afraid.'"
 He stretched his hand to her with his heart in his face, and she gave him hers with a look of tender submission,
 as he said ardently, "Heaven bless Hashish, if its dreams end like this."
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