The King's Talisman — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 THE KINGS TALISMAN. relieved the barren, desert waste, but which seemed to spread over the whole a sort of stately grandeur. At the foot of Mount Hor stood the mighty city of Petra, inclosed within its vast amphitheater of towering rocks, and looking like a flashing diamond in its rough but im- penetrable setting. Nature had built her walls and fashioned her single gateway, and even the mighty Babylon might not outvie her in her stronghold. Here it was that Trajan, with his Roman hosts, after the conquest of Petra, was obliged to turn from his ambitious purpose. The pow- erful‘Roman marshaled his hosts in vain around its mighty walls, and ere long he found himself obliged to leave it un- harmed, still rolling in its wealth and power, and still reposing beneath the sway of its own king. Upon a rude bench, which had been carved out from the solid rock, near the mouth of the cavern to which we have alluded, sat two persons, just within the shade of an over- hanging cliff. One was an old man, who years had run into the dead winter of life, and whose white beard and still _whiter locks gave him great hold upon the reverence of all whom he met. He was uncovered; and his only dress con- sisted of loose drawers, or trousers, of white linen, and a brown mantle which was girded round the waist by a leathern thong. ‘The mantle fell back from his shoulders, leaving his bosom entirely bare, while in his hand he held a stout staff of cedar. The lofty brow was cast in that intel- lectual mold which unites with a powerful mind the keen and subtle observation and wit, and the countenance, taken as a whole, was one which any honest man would at once have trusted as the index to a kind and pure heart. Such was Abdah Nazor, the Nabathean dervise and soothsayer— a man than wien none else in his day was more respected by the thousands who hung you his garments when he en- tered the city. Abdah Nazor’s companion was a fair-haired youth, GO Eomichbooks