306 BATTLES OF THE BIBLE.

a sad catastrophe from this dreadful wind. On the
15th of April 1813 the caravan from Mecca to Aleppo
entered the Arabian desert. There were merchants,
travellers, pilgrims returning from visiting the shrine
of their prophet at Mecca, and attendants, escorted
by four hundred military.—two thousand people in
all. Seven days they had travelled the desert; they
were nearly across it, when on the twenty-third of the
month, just as they had struck their tents and begun
their march, a wind rose and blew with great fury.
On they pushed as fast as they could, when suddenly the
sky overcast, and dense clouds appeared. Too well the
doomed travellers knew the fatal simoom. As they saw
the blast of death come nearer, the piercing cries of men
and beasts were heard; next moment there was the
silence of death.

Marianne. How dreadful! Were they all killed ?

Grandfather. The speed of the dromedaries saved
some of them, but not more than twenty out of all the
two thousand.’ Death is never far from us, and we do
not know how near it may be.

Johnnie. That is a terrible, story, grandfather; but I
would like to know what became of the great king whose
army was killed by the blast.

Grandfather. The great king was killed himself by
his two sons while he was worshipping in his idol temple.

Marianne. What wicked sons they must have been.

Grandfather. There is a story told which gives a rea-
son for their extraordinary conduct. When Sennache-