This was the first visit of the Mesdemoiselles Laurella to the family of Besso, for they had only returned from Marseilles at the beginning of the year, and their host had not resided at Damascus until the summer was much advanced. Of course they were well acquainted by reputation with the great Hebrew house of which the lord of the mansion was the chief. They had been brought up to esteem it the main strength and ornament of their race and religion. But the Mesdemoiselles Laurella were ashamed of their race, and not fanatically devoted to their religion, which might be true, but certainly was not fashionable. Therese, who was of a less sanguineous temperament than her sister, affected despair and unutterable humiliation, which permitted her to say before her own people a thousand disagreeable things with an air of artless frankness. The animated Sophonisbe, on the contrary, was always combating prejudice, felt persuaded that the Jews would not be so much disliked if they were better known; that all they had to do was to imitate as closely as possible the habits and customs of the nation among whom they chanced to live; and she really did believe that eventually, such was the progressive spirit of the age, a difference in religion would cease to be regarded, and that a respectable Hebrew, particularly if well dressed and well mannered, might be able to pass through society without being discovered, or at least noticed. Consummation of the destiny of the favourite people of the Creator of the universe!

Notwithstanding their practised nonchalance, the Mesdemoiselles Laurella were a little subdued when they entered the palace of Besso, still more so when they were presented to its master, whose manner, void of all art, yet invested with a natural dignity, asserted in an instant its superiority. Eva, whom they saw for the first time, received them like a queen, and in a dress which offered as complete a contrast to their modish attire as the beauty of her sublime countenance presented to their pretty and sparkling visages.

Madame Laurella, the mother of these young ladies, would in Europe have been still styled young. She was a Smyrniote, and had been a celebrated beauty. The rose had since then too richly expanded, but even now, with her dark eyelash charged with yamusk, her cheek touched with rouge, and her fingers tipped with henna, her still fine hair exaggerated by art or screened by her jewelled turban, she would have been a striking personage, even if it had not been for the blaze of jewels with which she was suffused and environed. The existence of this lady was concentred in her precious gems. An extreme susceptibility on this head is very prevalent among the ladies of the Levant, and the quantity of jewels that they accumulate far exceeds the general belief. Madame Laurella was without a rival in this respect, and resolved to maintain her throne; diamonds alone did not satisfy her; immense emeralds, rubies as big as pigeons' eggs, prodigious ropes of pearls, were studded and wound about every part of her rich robes. Every finger glittered, and bracelets flashed beneath her hanging sleeves. She sat in silent splendour on a divan, now and then proudly moving a fan of feathers, lost in criticism of the jewels of her friends, and in contemplation of her own.

A young man, tall and well-looking, dressed as an Oriental, but with an affected, jerking air, more French than Syrian, moved jauntily about the room, speaking to several persons for a short time, shrugging his shoulders and uttering commonplaces as if they were poignant originalities. This was Hillel Besso, the eldest son of the Besso of Aleppo, and the intended husband of Eva. Hillel, too, had seen the world, passed a season at Pera, where he had worn the Frank dress, and, introduced into the circles by the lady of the Austrian Internuncio, had found success and enjoyed himself. He had not, however, returned to Syria with any of the disgust shared by the Mesdemoiselles Laurella. Hillel was neither ashamed of his race nor his religion: on the contrary, he was perfectly satisfied with this life, with the family of Besso in general, and with himself particularly. Hillel was a little philosophical, had read Voltaire, and, free from prejudices, conceived himself capable of forming correct opinions. He listened smiling and in silence to Eva asserting the splendour and superiority of their race, and sighing for the restoration of their national glory, and then would say, in a whisper to a friend, and with a glance of epigrammatic airiness, 'For my part, I am not so sure that we were ever better off than we are.'

He stopped and conversed with Therese Laurella, who at first was unbending, but when she found that he was a Besso, and had listened to one or two anecdotes which indicated personal acquaintance not only with ambassadors but with ambassadors' ladies, she began to relax. In general, however, the rest of the ladies did not speak, or made only observations to each other in a hushed voice. Conversation is not the accomplishment of these climes and circles. They seemed content to show their jewels to their neighbours. There was a very fat lady, of prodigious size, the wife of Signor Yacoub Picholoroni, who was also a consul, but not a consul-general in honorem. She looked like a huge Chinese idol; a perpetual smile played upon her immense good-natured cheeks, and her little black eyes twinkled with continuous satisfaction. There were the Mourad Farhis and the Nas-sim Farhis. There were Moses Laurella and his wife, who shone with the reflected splendour of the great Laurellas, but who were really very nice people; sensible and most obliging, as all travellers must have found them. Moses Laurella was vice-consul to his brother. The Farhis had no diplomatic lustre, but they were great merchants, and worked with the House of Besso in all their enterprises. They had married two sisters, who were also their cousins. Madame Mourad Farhi was in the zenith of her renowned beauty; in the gorgeous Smyrniote style, brilliant yet languid, like a panther basking in the sunshine. Her sister also had a rich countenance, and a figure like a palm tree, while her fine brow beamed alike with intelligence and beauty. Madame, Nassim was highly cultured, enthusiastic for her race, and proud of the friendship of Eva, of which she was worthy.

There were also playing about the room three or four children of such dazzling beauty and such ineffable grace that no pen can picture their seraphic glances or gestures of airy frolic. Sometimes serious, from exhaustion not from thought; sometimes wild with the witchery of infant riot; a laughing girl with hair almost touching the ground, and large grey eyes bedewed with lustrous mischief, tumbles over an urchin who rises doubtful whether to scream or shout; sometimes they pull the robe of Besso while he talks, who goes on, as if unconscious of the interruption; sometimes they rush up to their mother or Eva for an embrace; sometimes they run up to the fat lady, look with wondering gravity in her face, and then, bursting into laughter, scud away. These are the children of a sister of Hillel Besso, brought to Damascus for change of air. Their mother is also here, sitting at the side of Eva: a soft and pensive countenance, watching the children with her intelligent blue eyes, or beckoning to them with a beautiful hand.

The men in general remained on their legs apart, conversing as if they were on the Bourse.

Now entered, from halls beyond of less dimensions, but all decorated with similar splendour, a train of servants, two of whom carried between them a large broad basket of silver filigree, filled with branches of the palm tree entwined with myrtle, while another bore a golden basket of a different shape, and which was filled with citrons just gathered. These they handed to the guests, and each guest took a branch with the right hand and a citron with the left. The conversation of Besso with Elias Laurella had been broken by their entrance, and a few minutes afterwards, the master of the house, looking about, held up his branch, shook it with a rustling sound, and immediately Eva was at his side.

The daughter of Besso wore a vest of white silk, fitting close to her shape and descending to her knees; it was buttoned with large diamonds and restrained by a girdle of pearls; anklets of brilliants peeped also, every now and then, from beneath her large Mamlouk trousers of rose-coloured silk that fell over her slippers, powdered with diamonds. Over her vest she wore the Syrian jacket, made of cherry-coloured velvet, its open arms and back richly embroidered, though these were now much concealed by her outer pelisse, a brocade of India, massy with gold, and yet relieved from heaviness by the brilliancy of its light blue tint and the dazzling fantasy of its pattern. This was loosely bound round her waist by a Moorish scarf of the colour of a blood-red orange, and bordered with a broad fringe of precious stones. Her head-dress was of the same fashion as when we first met her in the kiosk of Bethany, except that, on this occasion, her Syrian cap on the back of her head was covered only with diamonds, and only with diamonds was braided her long dark hair.

'They will never come,' said Besso to his daughter. 'It was one of his freaks. We will not wait.'

'I am sure, my father, they will come,' said Eva, earnestly. And indeed, at this very moment, as she stood at his side, holding in one hand her palm branch, which was reposing on her bosom, and in the other her fresh citron, the servants appeared again, ushering in two guests who had just arrived. One was quite a stranger, a young man dressed in the European fashion; the other was recognised at once by all present as the Emir of Canobia.



CHAPTER XLVII.

The Feast of Tabernacles

EVA had withdrawn from her father to her former remote position, the moment that she had recognised the two friends, and was, therefore, not in hearing when her father received them, and said, 'Welcome, noble stranger! the noble Emir here, to whom a thousand welcomes, told me that you would not be averse from joining a festival of my people.'

'I would seize any opportunity to pay my respects to you,' replied Tancred; 'but this occasion is most agreeable to me.'

'And when, noble traveller, did you arrive at Esh Sham?'

'But this morning; we were last from Hasbeya.' Tancred then inquired after Eva, and Besso led him to his daughter.

In the meantime the arrival of the new guests made a considerable sensation in the chamber, especially with the Mesdemoiselles Laurella. A young prince of the Lebanon, whatever his religion, was a distinguished and agreeable accession to their circle, but in Tancred they recognised a being at once civilised and fashionable, a Christian who could dance the polka. Refreshing as springs in the desert to their long languishing eyes were the sight of his white cravat and his boots of Parisian polish.

'It is one of our great national festivals,' said Eva, slightly waving her palm branch; 'the celebration of the Hebrew vintage, the Feast of Tabernacles.'

The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist, but the eternal law enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vintage. A race that persist in celebrating their vintage, although they have no fruits to gather, will regain their vineyards. What sublime inexorability in the law! But what indomitable spirit in the people!

It is easy for the happier Sephardim, the Hebrews who have never quitted the sunny regions that are laved by the Midland Ocean; it is easy for them, though they have lost their heritage, to sympathise, in their beautiful Asian cities or in their Moorish and Arabian gardens, with the graceful rights that are, at least, an homage to a benignant nature. But picture to yourself the child of Israel in the dingy suburb or the squalid quarter of some bleak northern town, where there is never a sun that can at any rate ripen grapes. Yet he must celebrate the vintage of purple Palestine! The law has told him, though a denizen in an icy clime, that he must dwell for seven days in a bower, and that he must build it of the boughs of thick trees; and the Rabbins have told him that these thick trees are the palm, the myrtle, and the weeping willow. Even Sarmatia may furnish a weeping willow. The law has told him that he must pluck the fruit of goodly trees, and the Rabbins have explained that goodly fruit on this occasion is confined to the citron. Perhaps, in his despair, he is obliged to fly to the candied delicacies of the grocer. His mercantile connections will enable him, often at considerable cost, to procure some palm leaves from Canaan, which he may wave in his synagogue while he exclaims, as the crowd did when the Divine descendant of David entered Jerusalem, 'Hosanna in the highest!'

There is something profoundly interesting in this devoted observance of Oriental customs in the heart of our Saxon and Sclavonian cities; in these descendants of the Bedouins, who conquered Canaan more than three thousand years ago, still celebrating that success which secured their forefathers, for the first time, grapes and wine.

Conceive a being born and bred in the Judenstrasse of Hamburg or Frankfort, or rather in the purlieus of our Houndsditch or Minories, born to hereditary insult, without any education, apparently without a circumstance that can develop the slightest taste, or cherish the least sentiment for the beautiful, living amid fogs and filth, never treated with kindness, seldom with justice, occupied with the meanest, if not the vilest, toil, bargaining for frippery, speculating in usury, existing for ever under the concurrent influence of degrading causes which would have worn out, long ago, any race that was not of the unmixed blood of Caucasus, and did not adhere to the laws of Moses; conceive such a being, an object to you of prejudice, dislike, disgust, perhaps hatred. The season arrives, and the mind and heart of that being are filled with images and passions that have been ranked in all ages among the most beautiful and the most genial of human experience; filled with a subject the most vivid, the most graceful, the most joyous, and the most exuberant; a subject which has inspired poets, and which has made gods; the harvest of the grape in the native regions of the Vine.

He rises in the morning, goes early to some White-chapel market, purchases some willow boughs for which he has previously given a commission, and which are brought, probably, from one of the neighbouring rivers of Essex, hastens home, cleans out the yard of his miserable tenement, builds his bower, decks it, even profusely, with the finest flowers and fruits that he can procure, the myrtle and the citron never forgotten, and hangs its roof with variegated lamps. After the service of his synagogue, he sups late with his wife and his children in the open air, as if he were in the pleasant villages of Galilee, beneath its sweet and starry sky.

Perhaps, as he is giving the Keedush, the Hebrew blessing to the Hebrew meal, breaking and distributing the bread, and sanctifying, with a preliminary prayer, the goblet of wine he holds, the very ceremony which the Divine Prince of Israel, nearly two thousand years ago, adopted at the most memorable of all repasts, and eternally invested with eucharistic grace; or, perhaps, as he is offering up the peculiar thanksgiving of the Feast of Tabernacles, praising Jehovah for the vintage which his children may no longer cull, but also for His promise that they may some day again enjoy it, and his wife and his children are joining in a pious Hosanna, that is, Save us! a party of Anglo-Saxons, very respectable men, ten-pounders, a little elevated it may be, though certainly not in honour of the vintage, pass the house, and words like these are heard:

'I say, Buggins, what's that row?'

'Oh! it's those cursed Jews! we've a lot of 'em here. It is one of their horrible feasts. The Lord Mayor ought to interfere. However, things are not as bad as they used to be: they used always to crucify little boys at these hullabaloos, but now they only eat sausages made of stinking pork.'

'To be sure,' replies his companion, 'we all make progress.'

In the meantime, a burst of music sounds from the gardens of Besso of Damascus. He advances, and invites Tancred and the Emir to follow him, and, without any order or courtesy to the softer sex, who, on the contrary, follow in the rear, the whole company step out of the Saracenic windows into the gardens. The mansion of Besso, which was of great extent, appeared to be built in their midst. No other roof or building was in any direction visible, yet the house was truly in the middle of the city, and the umbrageous plane trees alone produced that illimitable air which is always so pleasing and effective. The house, though lofty for an eastern mansion, was only one story in height, yet its front was covered with an external and double staircase. This, after a promenade in the garden, the guests approached and mounted. It led to the roof or terrace of the house, which was of great size, an oblong square, and which again was a garden. Myrtle trees of a considerable height, and fragrant with many flowers, were arranged in close order along the four sides of this roof, forming a barrier which no eye from the city beneath or any neighbouring terrace could penetrate. This verdant bulwark, however, opened at each corner of the roof, which was occupied by a projecting pavilion of white marble, a light cupola of chequered carving supported by wreathed columns. From these pavilions the most charming views might be obtained of the city and the surrounding country: Damascus, itself a varied mass of dark green groves, white minarets, bright gardens, and hooded domes; to the south and east, at the extremity of its rich plain, the glare of the desert; to the west the ranges of the Lebanon; while the city was backed on the north by other mountain regions which Tancred had not yet penetrated.

In the centre of the terrace was a temporary structure of a peculiar character. It was nearly forty feet long, half as many broad, and proportionately lofty. Twelve palm trees clustering with ripe fruit, and each of which seemed to spring from a flowering hedge of myrtles, supported a roof formed with much artifice of the braided boughs of trees. These, however, only furnished an invisible framework, from which were suspended the most beautiful and delicious fruits, citron and pomegranate, orange, and fig, and banana, and melon, in such thickness and profusion that they formed, as it were, a carved ceiling of rich shades and glowing colours, like the Saracenic ceiling of the mansion, while enormous bunches of grapes every now and then descended like pendants from the main body of the roof. The spaces between the palm trees were filled with a natural trellis-work of orange trees in fruit and blossom, leaving at intervals arches of entrance, whose form was indicated by bunches of the sweetest and rarest flowers.

Within was a banqueting-table covered with thick white damask silk, with a border of gold about a foot in breadth, and before each guest was placed a napkin of the same fashion. The table, however, lacked none of the conveniences and luxuries and even ornaments of Europe. What can withstand the united influence of taste, wealth, and commerce? The choicest porcelain of France, golden goblets chiselled in Bond Street, and the prototypes of which had perhaps been won at Goodwood or Ascot, mingled with the rarest specimens of the glass of Bohemia, while the triumphant blades of Sheffield flashed in that very Syrian city whose skill in cutlery had once been a proverb. Around the table was a divan of amber-coloured satin with many cushions, so arranged that the guests might follow either the Oriental or the European mode of seating themselves. Such was the bower or tabernacle of Besso of Damascus, prepared to celebrate the seventh day of his vintage feast.



CHAPTER XLVIII.

Eva's Affianced Bridegroom

WE OUGHT to have met at Jerusalem,' said Tancred to Besso, on whose right hand he was seated, 'but I am happy to thank you for all your kindness, even at Damascus.' 'My daughter tells me you are not uninterested in our people, which is the reason I ventured to ask you here.'

'I cannot comprehend how a Christian can be uninterested in a people who have handed down to him immortal truths.'

'All the world is not as sensible of the obligation as yourself, noble traveller.'

'But who are the world? Do you mean the inhabitants of Europe, which is a forest not yet cleared; or the inhabitants of Asia, which is a ruin about to tumble?'

'The railroads will clear the forest,' said Besso. 'And what is to become of the ruin?' asked Tancred.

'God will not forget His land.' 'That is the truth; the government of this globe must be divine, and the impulse can only come from Asia.'

'If your government only understood the Eastern question!' said Mr. Consul-General Laurella, pricking up his ears at some half phrase that he had caught, and addressing Tancred across the table. 'It is more simple than you imagine, and before you return to England to take your seat in your Parliament, I should be very happy to have some conversation with you.

I think I could tell you some things——' and he gave a glance of diplomatic mystery. Tancred bowed.

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking in an airy tone, 'it seems to me that your Eastern question is a great imbroglio that only exists in the cabinets of diplomatists. Why should there be any Eastern question? All is very well as it is. At least we might be worse: I think we might be worse.'

'I am so happy to find myself once more among you,' whispered Fakredeen to his neighbour, Madame Mourad Farhi. 'This is my real home.'

'All here must be happy and honoured to see you, too, noble Emir.'

'And the good Signor Mourad: I am afraid I am not a favourite of his?' pursued Fakredeen, meditating a loan.

'I never heard my husband speak of you, noble Emir, but with the greatest consideration.'

'There is no man I respect so much,' said Fakredeen; 'no one in whom I have such a thorough confidence. Excepting our dear host, who is really my father, there is no one on whose judgment I would so implicitly rely. Tell him all that, my dear Madame Mourad, for I wish him to respect me.'

'I admire his hair so much,' whispered Therese Laurella, in an audible voice to her sister, across the broad form of the ever-smiling Madame Picholoroni. 'Tis such a relief after our dreadful turbans.'

'And his costume, so becoming! I wonder how any civilised being can wear the sort of things we see about us. 'Tis really altogether like a wardrobe of the Comedie.'

'Well, Sophonisbe,' said the sensible Moses Laurella, 'I admire the Franks very much; they have many qualities which I could wish our Levantines shared; but I confess that I do not think that their strong point is their costume.'

'Oh, my dear uncle!' said Therese; 'look at that beautiful white cravat. What have we like it? So simple, so distinguished! Such good taste! And then the boots. Think of our dreadful slippers! powdered with pearls and all sorts of trash of that kind, by the side of that lovely French polish.'

'He must be terribly ennuye here,' said Therese to Sophonisbe, with a look of the initiated.

'Indeed, I should think so: no balls, not an opera; I quite pity him. What could have induced him to come here?'

'I should think he must be attached to some one,' said Therese: 'he looks unhappy.'

'There is not a person near him with whom he can have an idea in common.'

'Except Mr. Hillel Besso,' said Therese. 'He appears to be quite enlightened. I spoke to him a little before dinner. He has been a winter at Pera, and went to all the balls.'

'Lord Palmerston understood the Eastern question to a certain degree,' said Mr. Consul-General Laurella; 'but, had I been in the service of the Queen of England, I could have told him some things;' and he mysteriously paused.

'I cannot endure this eternal chatter about Palmerston,' said the Emir, rather pettishly. 'Are there no other statesmen in the world besides Palmerston? And what should he know about the Eastern question, who never was in the East?'

'Ah, noble Emir, these are questions of the high diplomacy. They cannot be treated unless by the cabinets which have traditions.'

'I could settle the Eastern question in a month, if I were disposed,' said Fakredeen.

Mr. Consul-General Laurella smiled superciliously, and then said, 'But the question is, what is the Eastern question?'

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, in a most epigrammatic manner, 'I do not see the use of settling anything.'

'The Eastern question is, who shall govern the Mediterranean?' said the Emir. 'There are only two powers who can do it: Egypt and Syria. As for the English, the Russians, the Franks, your friends the Austrians, they are strangers. They come, and they will go; but Syria and Egypt will always remain.'

'Egypt has tried, and failed.'

'Then let Syria try, and succeed.'

'Do you visit Egypt before you return from the East, noble sir?' asked Besso, of Tancred.

'I have not thought of my return; but I should not be sorry to visit Egypt. It is a country that rather perplexes us in Europe. It has undergone great changes.'

Besso shook his head, and slightly smiled.

'Egypt,' said he, 'never changes. 'Tis the same land as in the days of the Pharaohs: governed on their principles of political economy, with a Hebrew for prime minister.'

'A Hebrew for prime minister!'

'Even so: Artim Bey, the present prime minister of Egypt, formerly the Pasha's envoy at Paris, and by far the best political head in the Levant, is not only the successor but the descendant of Joseph.'

'He must be added then to your friend M. de Sidonia's list of living Hebrew statesmen,' said Tancred.

'We have our share of the government of the world,' said Besso.

'It seems to me that you govern every land except your own.'

'That might have been done in '39,' said Besso musingly; 'but why speak of a subject which can little interest you?'

'Can little interest me!' exclaimed Tancred. 'What other subject should interest me? More than six centuries ago, the government of that land interested my ancestor, and he came here to achieve it.'

The stars were shining before they quitted the Arabian tabernacle of Besso. The air was just as soft as a sweet summer English noon, and quite as still. The pavilions of the terrace and the surrounding bowers were illuminated by the varying tints of a thousand lamps. Bright carpets and rich cushions were thrown about for those who cared to recline; the brothers Farhi, for example, and indeed most of the men, smoking inestimable nargilehs. The Consul-General Laurella begged permission to present Lord Montacute to his daughters Therese and Sophonisbe, who, resolved to show to him that Damascus was not altogether so barbarous as he deemed it, began talking of new dances and the last opera. Tancred would have found great difficulty in sustaining his part in the conversation, had not the young ladies fortunately been requested to favour those present with a specimen of the art in which they excelled, which they did after much solicitation, vowing that they had no voice to-night, and that it was impossible at all times to sing except in a chamber.

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, with an extremely piquant air, 'music in a chamber is very charming, but I think also in the open air it is not so bad.'

Tancred took advantage of this movement to approach Eva, who was conversing, as they took their evening walk, with the soft-eyed sister of Hillel and Madame Nassim Farhi; a group of women that the drawing-rooms of Europe and the harems of Asia could perhaps not have rivalled.

'The Mesdemoiselles Laurella are very accomplished,' said Tancred, 'but at Damascus I am not content to hear anything but sackbuts and psalteries.'

'But in Europe your finest music is on the subjects of our history,' said Eva.

'Naturally,' said Tancred, 'music alone can do justice to such themes. They baffle the uninspired pen.'

'There is a prayer which the Mesdemoiselles Laurella once sang, a prayer of Moses in Egypt,' said Madame Nassim, somewhat timidly. 'It is very fine.'

'I wish they would favour us with it,' said Eva; 'I will ask Hillel to request that kindness;' and she beckoned to Hillel, who sauntered toward her, and listened to her whispered wish with a smile of supercilious complacency.

'At present they are going to favour us with Don Pasquale,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'A prayer is a very fine thing, but for my part, at this hour, I think a serenade is not so bad.'

'And how do you like my father?' said Eva to Tancred in a hesitating tone, and yet with a glance of blended curiosity and pride.

'He is exactly what Sidonia prepared me for; worthy not only of being your father, but the father of mankind.'

'The Moslemin say that we are near paradise at Damascus,' said Madame Nassim, 'and that Adam was fashioned out of our red earth.'

'He much wished to see you,' said Eva, 'and your meeting is as unexpected as to him it is agreeable.'

'We ought to have met long before,' said Tancred. 'When I first arrived at Jerusalem, I ought to have hastened to his threshold. The fault and the misfortune were mine. I scarcely deserved the happiness of knowing you.'

'I am happy we have all met, and that you now understand us a little. When you go back to England, you will defend us when we are defamed? You will not let them persecute us, as they did a few years back, because they said we crucified their children at the feast of our passover?'

'I shall not go back to England,' said Tancred, colouring; 'and if you are persecuted, I hope I shall be able to defend you here.'

The glowing sky, the soft mellow atmosphere, the brilliant surroundings, and the flowers and flashing gems, rich dresses and ravishing music, and every form of splendour and luxury, combined to create a scene that to Tancred was startling, as well from its beauty as its novel character. A rich note of Therese Laurella for an instant arrested their conversation. They were silent while it lingered on their ear. Then Tancred said to the soft-eyed sister of Hillel, 'All that we require here to complete the spell are your beautiful children.'

'They sleep,' said the lady, 'and lose little by not being present, for, like the Queen of Sheba, I doubt not they are dreaming of music and flowers.'

'They say that the children of our race are the most beautiful in the world,' said Eva, 'but that when they grow up, they do not fulfil the promise of their infancy.'

'That were scarcely possible,' said the soft-eyed mother.

'It is the sense of shame that comes on them and dims their lustre,' said Eva. 'Instead of joyous-ness and frank hilarity, anxiety and a shrinking reserve are soon impressed upon the youthful Hebrew visage. It is the seal of ignominy. The dreadful secret that they are an expatriated and persecuted race is soon revealed to them, at least among the humbler classes. The children of our house are bred in noble thoughts, and taught self-respect. Their countenances will not change.'

And the countenance from whose beautiful mouth issued those gallant words, what of that? It was one that might wilder the wisest. Tancred gazed upon it with serious yet fond abstraction. All heavenly and heroic thoughts gathered around the image of this woman. From the first moment of their meeting at Bethany to this hour of sacred festival, all the passages of his life in which she had been present flashed through his mind. For a moment he was in the ruins of the Arabian desert, and recalled her glance of sweet solicitude, when, recovered by her skill and her devotion, he recognised the fair stranger whose words had, ere that, touched the recesses of his spirit, and attuned his mind to high and holiest mysteries. Now again their eyes met; an ineffable expression suffused the countenance of Lord Monta-cute. He sighed.

At this moment Hillel and Fakredeen advanced with a hurried air of gaiety. Hillel offered his hand to Eva with jaunty grace, exclaiming at the same time, 'Ladies, if you like to follow us, you shall see a casket just arrived from Marseilles, and which Eva will favour me by carrying to Aleppo. It was chosen for me by the Lady of the Austrian Internuncio, who is now at Paris. For my part, I do not see much advantage in the diplomatic corps, if occasionally they do not execute a commission for one.'

Hillel hurried Eva away, accompanied by his sister and Madame Nassim. Tancred and Fakredeen remained behind.

'Who is this man?' said Tancred.

''Tis her affianced,' said the Emir; 'the man who has robbed me of my natural bride. It is to be hoped, however, that, when she is married, Besso will adopt me as his son, which in a certain sense I am, having been fostered by his wife. If he do not leave me his fortune, he ought at least to take up all my bills in Syria. Don't you think so, my Tancred?'

'What?' said Tancred, with a dreamy look.

There was a burst of laughter in the distance.

'Come, come,' said Fakredeen, 'see how they are all gathering round the marriage casket. Even Nassim Farhi has risen. I must go and talk to him: he has impulses, that man, at least compared with his brother; Mourad is a stone, a precious stone though, and you cannot magnetise him through his wife, for she has not an idea; but Madame Nassim is immensely mesmeric. Come, come, Tancred.'

'I follow.'

But instead of following his friend, Tancred entered one of the marble pavilions that jutted out from each corner of the terraced roof, and commanded splendid views of the glittering and gardened city. The moon had risen over that unrivalled landscape; the white minarets sparkled in its beam, and the vast hoods of the cupolaed mosques were suffused with its radiancy or reposed in dark shadow, almost as black as the cypress groves out of which they rose. In the extreme distance, beyond the fertile plain, was the desert, bright as the line of the sea, while otherwise around him extended the chains of Lebanon and of the North.

The countenance of Tancred was more than serious, it was sad, as, leaning against one of the wreathed marble pillars, he sighed and murmured: 'If I were thou, most beautiful Damascus, Aleppo should not rob me of such a gem! But I must tear up these thoughts from my heart by their roots, and remember that I am ordained for other deeds.'



CHAPTER XLIX.

A Discussion About Scammony

AFTER taking the bath on his arrival at Damascus, having his beard arranged by a barber of distinction, and dressing himself in a fresh white suit, as was his custom when in residence, with his turban of the same colour arranged a little aside, for Baroni was scrupulous as to his appearance, he hired a donkey and made his way to the great bazaar. The part of the city through which he proceeded was very crowded and bustling: narrow streets, with mats slung across, to shield from the sun the swarming population beneath. His accustomed step was familiar with every winding of the emporium of the city; he threaded without hesitation the complicated mazes of those interminable arcades. Now he was in the street of the armourers, now among the sellers of shawls; the prints of Manchester were here unfolded, there the silks of India; sometimes he sauntered by a range of shops gay with yellow papooshes and scarlet slippers, and then hurried by the stalls and shelves stored with the fatal frippery of the East, in which it is said the plague in some shape or other always lurks and lingers. This locality, however, indicated that Baroni was already approaching the purlieus of the chief places; the great population had already much diminished, the brilliancy of the scene much dimmed; there was no longer the swarm of itinerant traders who live by promptly satisfying the wants of the visitors to the bazaar in the shape of a pipe or an ice, a cup of sherbet or of coffee, or a basket of delicious fruit. The passengers were few, and all seemed busy: some Armenians, a Hebrew physician and his page, the gliding phantoms of some winding-sheets, which were in fact women.

Baroni turned into an arcade, well built, spacious, airy, and very neatly fitted up. This was the bazaar of the dealers in drugs. Here, too, spices are sold, all sorts of dye-woods, and especially the choice gums for which Arabia is still celebrated, and which Syria would fain rival by the aromatic juices of her pistachio and her apricot trees.

Seated on what may be called his counter, smoking a nargileh, in a mulberry-coloured robe bordered with fur, and a dark turban, was a middle-aged man of sinister countenance and air, a long hook nose and a light blue eye.

'Welcome, Effendi,' he said, when he observed Baroni; 'many welcomes! And how long have you been at Esh Sham?'

'Not too long,' said Baroni; 'and have you been here since my last visit?'

'Here and there,' said the man, offering him his pipe.

'And how are our friends in the mountains?' said Baroni, touching the tube with his lips and returning it.

'They live,' said the man.

'That's something,' said Baroni.

'Have you been in the land of the Franks?' said the man.

'I am always in the land of the Franks,' said Baroni, 'and about.'

'You don't know any one who wants a parcel of scammony?' said the man.

'I don't know that I don't,' said Baroni, mysteriously.

'I have a very fine parcel,' said the man; 'it is very scarce.'

'No starch or myrrh in it?' asked Baroni.

'Do you think I am a Jew?' said the man.

'I never could make out what you were, friend Darkush; but as for scammony, I could throw a good deal of business in your way at this moment, to say nothing of galls and tragacanth.'

'As for tragacanth,' said Darkush, 'it is known that no one in Esh Sham has pure tragacanth except me; as for galls, every foundling in Syria thinks he can deal in afis, but is it afis of Moussoul, Effendi?'

'What you say are the words of truth, good Darkush; I could recommend you with a safe conscience. I dreamt last night that there would many piastres pass between us this visit.'

'What is the use of friends unless they help you in the hour of adversity?' exclaimed Darkush.

'You speak ever the words of truth. I am myself in a valley of dark shadows. I am travelling with a young English capitani, a prince of many tails, and he has declared that he will entirely extinguish my existence unless he pays a visit to the Queen of the Ansarey.'

'Let him first pay a visit to King Soliman in the cities of the Gin,' said Darkush, doggedly.

'I am not sure that he will not, some time or other,' replied Baroni, 'for he is a man who will not take nay. But now let us talk of scammony,' he added, vaulting on the counter, and seating himself by the side of Darkush; 'one might get more by arranging this visit to your mountains than by enjoying an appalto of all its gums, friend Darkush; but if it cannot be, it cannot be.'

'It cannot be.'

'Let us talk, then, of scammony. You remember my old master, Darkush?'

'There are many things that are forgotten, but he is not one.'

'This capitani with whom I travel, this prince of many tails, is his friend. If you serve me now, you serve also him who served you.'

'There are things that can be done, and there are things that cannot be done.'

'Let us talk, then, of scammony. But fifteen years ago, when we first met, friend Darkush, you did not say nay to M. de Sidonia. It was the plague alone that stopped us.'

'The snow on the mountain is not the same snow as fifteen years ago, Effendi. All things change!'

'Let us talk, then, of scammony. The Ansarey have friends in other lands, but if they will not listen to them, many kind words will be lost. Things also might happen which would make everybody's shadow longer, but if there be no sun, their shadows cannot be seen.'

Darkush shrugged his shoulders.

'If the sun of friendship does not illumine me,' resumed Baroni, 'I am entirely lost in the bottomless vale. Truly, I would give a thousand piastres if I could save my head by taking the capitani to your mountains.'

'The princes of Franguestan cannot take off heads,' observed Darkush. 'All they can do is to banish you to islands inhabited by demons.'

'But the capitani of whom I speak is prince of many tails, is the brother of queens. Even the great Queen of the English, they say, is his sister.'

'He who serves queens may expect backsheesh.'

'And you serve a queen, Darkush?'

'Which is the reason I cannot give you a pass for the mountains, as I would have done, fifteen years ago, in the time of her father.'

'Are her commands, then, so strict?'

'That she should see neither Moslem nor Christian. She is at war with both, and will be for ever, for the quarrel between them is beyond the power of man to remove.'

'And what may it be?'

'That you can learn only in the mountains of the Ansarey,' said Darkush, with a malignant smile.

Baroni fell into a musing mood. After a few moments' thought, he looked up, and said: 'What you have told me, friend Darkush, is very interesting, and throws light on many things. This young prince, whom I serve, is a friend to your race, and knows well why you are at war both with Moslem and Christian, for he is so himself. But he is a man sparing of words, dark in thought, and terrible to deal with. Why he wishes to visit your people I dared not inquire, but now I guess, from what you have let fall, that he is an Ansarey himself. He has come from a far land merely to visit his race, a man who is a prince among the people, to whom piastres are as water. I doubt not he has much to say to your Queen: things might have happened that would have lengthened all our shadows; but never mind, what cannot be, cannot be: let us talk, then, of scammony.'

'You think he is one?' said Darkush, in a lower tone, and looking very inquiringly.

'I do,' said Baroni.

'And what do you mean by one?' said Darkush.

'That is exactly the secret which I never could penetrate.'

'I cannot give a pass to the mountains,' said Darkush, 'but the sympathy of friends is a river flowing in a fair garden. If this prince, whose words and thoughts are dark, should indeed be one—— Could I see him, Effendi?'

'It is a subject on which I dare not speak to him,' said Baroni. 'I hinted at his coming here: his brow was the brow of Eblis, his eye flashed like the red lightning of the Kamsin: it is impossible! What cannot be done, cannot be done. He must return to the land of his fathers, unseen by your Queen, of whom he is perhaps a brother; he will live, hating alike Moslem and Christian, but he will banish me for ever to islands of many demons.'

'The Queen shall know of these strange things,' said Darkush, 'and we will wait for her words.'

'Wait for the Mecca caravan!' exclaimed Baroni. 'You know not the child of storms, who is my master, and that is ever a reason why I think he must be one of you. For had he been softened by Christianity or civilised by the Koran——'

'Unripe figs for your Christianity and your Koran!' exclaimed Darkush. 'Do you know what we think of your Christianity and your Koran?'

'No,' said Baroni, quietly. 'Tell me.'

'You will learn in our mountains,' said Darkush.

'Then you mean to let me go there?'

'If the Queen permit you,' said Darkush.

'It is three hundred miles to your country, if it be an hour's journey,' said Baroni. 'What with sending the message and receiving the answer, to say nothing of the delays which must occur with a woman and a queen in the case, the fountains of Esh Sham will have run dry before we hear that our advance is forbidden.'

Darkush shook his head, and yet smiled.

'By the sunset of to-morrow, Effendi, I could say, ay or nay. Tell me what scammony you want, and it shall be done.'

'Write down in your tablets how much you can let me have,' said Baroni, 'and I will pay you for it to-morrow. As for the goods themselves, you may keep them for me, until I ask you for them; perhaps the next time I travel with a capitani who is one of yourselves.'

Darkush threw aside the tube of his nargileh, and, putting his hand very gently into the breast of his robe, he drew out a pigeon, dove-coloured, but with large bright black eyes. The pigeon seemed very knowing and very proud, as he rested on his master's two fingers.

'Hah, hah! my Karaguus, my black-eyes,' exclaimed Darkush. 'What, is he going on a little journey to somebody! Yes, we can trust Karaguus, for he is one of us. Effendi, to-morrow at sunset, at your khan, for the bazaar will be closed, you shall hear from me.'



CHAPTER L.

The Mysterious Mountains

AT THE black gorge of a mountain pass sat, like sentries, two horsemen. Their dress was that of the Kurds: white turbans, a black shirt girt with cords, on their backs a long lance, by their sides a crooked sword, and in their girdles a brace of pistols.

Before them extended a wide, but mountainous landscape: after the small and very rugged plain on the brink of which they were posted, many hilly ridges, finally a lofty range. The general character of the scene was severe and savage; the contiguous rocks were black and riven, the hills barren and stony, the granite peaks of the more eminent heights uncovered, except occasionally by the snow. Yet, notwithstanding the general aridity of its appearance, the country itself was not unfruitful. The concealed vegetation of the valleys was not inconsiderable, and was highly cherished; the less precipitous cliffs, too, were cut into terraces, and covered with artificial soil. The numerous villages intimated that the country was well populated. The inhabitants produced sufficient wine and corn for their own use, were clothed in garments woven by themselves, and possessed some command over the products of other countries by the gums, the bees'-wax, and the goats' wool which they could offer in exchange.

'I have seen two eagles over Gibel Kiflis twice this morning,' said one of the horsemen to his companion. 'What does that portend?'

'A good backsheesh for our Queen, comrade. If these children of Franguestan can pay a princess's dower to visit some columns in the desert, like Tadmor, they may well give us the golden keys of their treasury when they enter where none should go but those who are——'

'But they say that this Frank is one.'

'It has never been known that there were any among the Franks,' replied his comrade, shaking his head. 'The Franks are all Nazareny, and, before they were Nazareny, they were savages, and lived in caves.'

'But Keferinis has given the word that all are to guard over the strangers as over the Queen herself, and that one is a prince, who is unquestionably one of us.'

'My father had counted a hundred and ten years when he left us, Azaz, and he had twenty-four children, and when he was at the point of death he told us two things: one was, never to forget what we were; and the other, that never in his time had one like us ever visited our country.'

'Eagles again fly over Gibel Kiflis: methinks the strangers must be at hand.'

'May their visit lead to no evil to them or to us!'

'Have you misgivings?'

'We are alone among men: let us remain so.'

'You are right. I was once at Haleb (Aleppo); I will never willingly find myself there again.'

'Give me the mountains, the mountains of our fathers, and the beautiful things that can be seen only by one of us!'

'They are not to be found in the bazaars of Haleb; in the gardens of Damascus they are not to be sought.'

'Oh! who is like the Queen who reigns over us? I know to whom she is to be compared, but I will not say; yet you too know, my brother in arms.'

'Yes; there are things which are not known in the bazaars of Haleb; in the gardens of Damascus they are not to be sought.'

Karaguus, the black-eyed pigeon, brought tidings to the Queen of the Ansarey, from her agent Darkush, that two young princes, one a Syrian, the other a Frank, wished to enter her territories to confer with her on grave matters, and that he had reason to believe that one of the princes, the Frank, strange, incredible as it might sound, was one of themselves. On the evening of the next day, very weary, came Ruby-lips, the brother of Black-eyes, with the reply of her Majesty, ordering Darkush to grant the solicited pass, but limiting the permission of entrance into her dominions to the two princes and two attendants. As one of these, Baroni figured. They did not travel very rapidly. Tancred was glad to seize the occasion to visit Hameh and Aleppo on his journey.

It was after quitting the latter city, and crossing the river Koweik, that they approached the region which was the object of their expedition. What certainly did not contribute to render their progress less difficult and dangerous was the circumstance that war at this moment was waged between the Queen of the Ansarey and the Pasha of Aleppo. The Turkish potentate had levied tribute on some villages which owned her sway, and which, as he maintained, were not included in the ancient composition paid by the Ansarey to the Porte in full of all demands. The consequence was, that parties of the Ansarey occasionally issued from their passes and scoured the plain of Aleppo. There was also an understanding between the Ansarey and the Kurds, that, whenever any quarrel occurred between the mountaineers and the Turks, the Kurds, who resembled the inhabitants of the mountain in their general appearance, should, under the title of Ansarey, take this opportunity of ravage. Darkush, however, had given Baroni credentials to the secret agent of the Ansarey at Aleppo; and, with his instructions and assistance, the difficulties, which otherwise might have been insuperable, were overcome; and thus it was that the sentries stationed at the mouth of the black ravine, which led to the fortress palace of the Queen, were now hourly expecting the appearance of the princes.

A horseman at full gallop issued from the hills, and came bounding over the stony plain; he shouted to the sentries as he passed them, announcing the arrival of the strangers, and continued his pace through the defile. Soon afterwards appeared the cavalcade of the princes; themselves, their two attendants, and a party of horsemen with white turbans and long lances.

Tancred and Fakredeen rode horses of a high race. But great as is the pleasure of being well mounted, it was not that circumstance alone which lit up their eyes with even unwonted fire, and tinged their cheeks with a triumphant glow. Their expedition had been delightful; full of adventure, novelty, and suspense. They had encountered difficulties and they had overcome them. They had a great purpose, they were on the eve of a stirring incident. They were young, daring, and brilliant.

'A strong position,' said Tancred, as they entered the defile.

'O! my Tancred, what things we have seen together!' exclaimed Fakredeen. 'And what is to follow?'

The defile was not long, and it was almost unbending. It terminated in a table-land of very limited extent, bounded by a rocky chain, on one of the front and more moderate elevations of which was the appearance of an extensive fortification; though, as the travellers approached it, they perceived that, in many instances, art had only availed itself of the natural advantages of the position, and that the towers and turrets were carved out of the living rock which formed the impregnable bulwarks and escarpments.

The cavalcade, at a quick pace, soon gained the ascending and winding road that conducted them to a tall and massy gateway, the top of which was formed of one prodigious stone. The iron portal opening displayed a covered way cut out of the rock, and broad enough to permit the entrance of two horsemen abreast. This way was of considerable length, and so dark that they were obliged to be preceded by torch-bearers. Thence they issued into a large courtyard, the sunshine of which was startling and almost painful, after their late passage. The court was surrounded by buildings of different styles and proportions; the further end, and, as it were, centre of the whole, being a broad, square, and stunted brick tower, immediately behind which rose the granite peaks of the mountains.

There were some horsemen in the court, and many attendants on foot, who came forward and assisted the guests to alight. Tancred and Fakredeen did not speak, but exchanged glances which expressed their secret thoughts. Perhaps they were of the same opinion as Baroni, that, difficult as it was to arrive there, it might not be more easy to return. However, God is great! a consolatory truth that had sustained Baroni under many trials.

They were ushered into a pavilion at the side of the court, and thence into a commodious divan, which opened upon another and smaller court, in which were some acacia trees. As usual, pipes and coffee were brought. Baroni was outside, with the other attendant, stowing away the luggage. A man plainly but neatly dressed, slender and wrinkled, with a stooping gait but a glittering eye, came into the chamber, and, in a hushed voice, with many smiles, much humility, but the lurking air of a master, welcomed them to Gindarics. Then, seating himself on the divan, he clapped his hands, and an attendant brought him his nargileh.

'I presume,' said Tancred, 'that the Emir and myself have the honour of conversing with the Lord Keferinis.' Thus he addressed this celebrated eunuch, who is prime minister of the Queen of the Ansarey.

'The Prince of England,' replied Keferinis, bowing, and speaking in a very affected voice, and in a very affected manner, 'must not expect the luxuries of the world amid these mountains. Born in London, which is surrounded by the sea, and with an immense slave population at your command, you have advantages with which the Ansarey cannot compete, unjustly deprived, as they have been, of their port; and unable, in the present diminished supply of the markets, to purchase slaves as heretofore from the Turkmans and the Kurds.'

'I suppose the Russians interfere with your markets?' said Fakredeen.

'The noble Emir of the Lebanon has expressed himself with infinite exactitude,' said Keferinis. 'The Russians now entirely stock their harems from the north of Asia.'

'The Lord Keferinis has been a great traveller, I apprehend?' said Tancred.

'The Prince of England has expressed himself with extreme exactitude, and with flattering grace,' replied Keferinis. 'I have indeed visited all the Syrian cities, except Jerusalem, which no one wishes to see, and which,' he added, in a sweet calm tone, 'is unquestionably a place fit only for hogs.'

Tancred started, but repressed himself.

'Have you been in Lebanon?' asked Fakredeen.

'Noble Emir, I have been the guest of princes of your illustrious house. Conversations have passed between me and the Emir Bescheer,' he added, with a significant look. 'Perhaps, had events happened which did not occur, the great Emir Bescheer might not at this moment have been a prisoner at Stamboul, among those who, with infinite exactitude, may be described as the most obscene sons of very intolerable barbarians.'

'And why did not you and the Emir Bescheer agree?' inquired Fakredeen, eagerly. 'Why has there never been a right understanding between your people and the House of Shehaab? United, we should not only command Syria, but we might do more: we might control Asia itself!'

'The noble Emir has expressed himself with inexpressible grace. The power of the Ansarey cannot be too highly estimated!'

'Is it true that your sovereign can bring five and twenty thousand men into the field?' asked Tancred.

'Five and twenty thousand men,' replied Keferinis, with insinuating courtesy, 'each of whom could beat nine Maronites, and consequently three Druses.'

'Five and twenty thousand figs for your five and twenty thousand men!' exclaimed Fakredeen laughing.

At this moment entered four pages and four maidens bringing sweetmeats from the Queen, and goblets of iced water. They bowed; Keferinis indicated their purpose, and when they had fulfilled their office they disappeared; but the seasonable interruption had turned the conversation, and prevented Fakredeen making a sharp retort. Now they talked of the Queen, who, Keferinis said, would be graciously pleased not to see them to-day, and might not even see them for a week, which agreeable intelligence was communicated in the most affable manner, as if it were good news, or a compliment at least.

'The name of the Queen's father was Suedia,' said Fakredeen.

'The name of the Queen's father was Suedia,' replied Keferinis.

'And the name of the Queen's mother——'

'Is of no consequence,' observed Keferinis, 'for she was a slave, and not one of us, and therefore may with singular exactitude be described as nothing.'

'Is she the first Queen who has reigned over the Ansarey?' inquired Tancred.

'The first since we have settled in these mountains,' replied Keferinis.

'And where were you settled before?' inquired Fakredeen.

'Truly,' replied Keferinis, 'in cities which never can be forgotten, and therefore need never be mentioned.'

Tancred and Fakredeen were very desirous of learning the name of the Queen, but were too well-bred directly to make the inquiry of Keferinis. They had endeavoured to obtain the information as they travelled along, but although every Ansarey most obligingly answered their inquiry, they invariably found, on comparing notes, that every time they were favoured with a different piece of information. At last, Baroni informed them that it was useless to pursue their researches, as he was, from various reasons, convinced that no Ansarey was permitted to give any information of his country, race, government, or creed, although he was far too civil ever to refuse an apparently satisfactory answer to every question. As for Keferinis, although he was very conversable, the companions observed that he always made it a rule to dilate upon subjects and countries with which he had no acquaintance, and he expressed himself in so affected a manner, and with such an amplification of useless phraseology, that, though he was always talking, they seemed at the end of the day to be little more acquainted with the Ansarey and their sovereign than when Baroni first opened the subject of their visit to Darkush at Damascus.



CHAPTER LI.

Queen of the Ansarey

AWAY, away, Cypros! I can remain no more; my heart beats so.' 'Sweet lady,' replied Cypros, 'it is surprise that agitates you.' 'Is it surprise, Cypros? I did not know it was surprise. Then I never was surprised before.'

'I think they were surprised, sweet lady,' said Cypros, smiling.

'Hush, you are laughing very loud, my Cypros.' 'Is that laughter, sweet lady? I did not know it was laughter. Then I never laughed before.'

'I would they should know nothing either of our smiles or of our sighs, my Cypros.'

She who said this was a girl of eighteen summers; her features very Greek, her complexion radiant, hair dark as night, and eyes of the colour of the violet. Her beautiful countenance, however, was at this moment nearly shrouded by her veil, although no one could possibly behold it, excepting her attendant, younger even than herself, and fresh and fair as a flower.

They were hurrying along a wooden gallery, which led, behind the upper part of the divan occupied by the travellers, to the great square central tower of the quadrangle, which we have already noticed, and as the truth must always, or at least eventually, come out, it shall not be concealed that, availing themselves of a convenient, perhaps irresistible position, the fair fugitives had peeped into the chamber, and had made even minute observations on its inhabitants with impunity. Suddenly, Fakredeen rising from his seat, a panic had seized them and they hurried away.

The gallery led to a flight of steps, and the flight of steps into the first of several chambers without decoration, and with no other furniture than an Eastern apartment always offers, the cushioned seat, which surrounds at least two-thirds of the room. At length they entered a small alcove, rudely painted in arabesque, but in a classic Ionic pattern; the alcove opened into a garden, or rather court of myrtles with a fountain. An antelope, an Angora cat, two Persian greyhounds, were basking on the sunny turf, and there were many birds about, in rude but capacious cages.

'We are safe,' said the lady, dropping on the divan; 'I think we must have been seen.'

'That was clearly impossible,' said Cypros.

'Well, we must be seen at last,' said the lady. 'Heigho! I never shall be able to receive them, if my heart beat so.'

'I would let them wait a few days, sweet lady,' said Cypros, 'and then you would get more used to them.'

'I shall never be more used to them. Besides, it is rude and inhospitable not to see them. Yesterday there was an excuse: they were wearied, or I had a right to suppose they were, with their travelling; and to-day, there ought to be an excuse for not receiving them to-day. What is it, Cypros?'

'I dare say they will be quite content, if to-day you fix the time when you will receive them, sweet lady.'

'But I shall not be content, Cypros. Having seen them once, I wish to see them again, and one cannot always be walking by accident in the gallery.'

'Then I would see them to-day, sweet lady. Shall I send for the noble Keferinis?'

'I wish I were Cypros, and you were—— Hark! what is that?'

''Tis only the antelope, sweet lady.'

'I thought it was—— Now tell me, my Cypros, which of these two princes do you think is he who is one of us?'

'Oh, really, sweet lady, I think they are both so handsome!'

'Yet so unlike,' said the lady.

'Well, they are unlike,' said Cypros, 'and yet——'

'And what?'

'The fair one has a complexion almost as radiant as your own, sweet lady.'

'And eyes as blue: no, they are too light. And so, as there is a likeness, you think he is the one?'

'I am sure I wish they were both belonging to us,' said Cypros.

'Ah, me!' said the lady, ''tis not the bright-faced prince whom I hold to be one of us. No, no, my Cypros. Think awhile, sweet girl. The visage, the head of the other, have you not seen them before? Have you not seen something like them? That head so proudly placed upon the shoulders; that hair, that hyacinthine hair, that lofty forehead, that proud lip, that face so refined and yet so haughty, does it not recall anything? Think, Cypros; think!'

'It does, sweet lady.'

'Tell me; whisper it to me; it is a name not to be lightly mentioned.'

Cypros advanced, and bending her head, breathed a word in the ear of the lady, who instantly, blushing deeply, murmured with a faint smile, 'Yes.'

'It is he, then,' said Cypros, 'who is one of us.'



CHAPTER LII.

A Royal Audience

OUR travellers were speculating, not very sanguinely, on the possible resources which Gindarics might supply for the amusement of a week, when, to their great relief, they were informed by Keferinis, that the Queen had fixed noon, on this the day after their arrival, to receive them. And accordingly at that time some attendants, not accompanying, however, the chief minister, waited on Tancred and Fakredeen, and announced that they were commanded to usher them to the royal presence. Quitting their apartments, they mounted a flight of steps, which led to the wooden gallery, along which they pursued their course. At its termination were two sentries with their lances. Then they descended a corresponding flight of stairs and entered a chamber where they were received by pages; the next room, of larger size, was crowded, and here they remained for a few minutes. Then they were ushered into the presence.

The young Queen of the Ansarey could not have received them with an air more impassive had she been holding a levee at St. James'. Seated on her divan, she was clothed in a purple robe; her long dark hair descended over her shoulders, and was drawn off her white forehead, which was bound with a broad circlet of pure gold, and of great antiquity. On her right hand stood Keferinis, the captain of her guard, and a priestly-looking person with a long white beard, and then at some distance from these three personages, a considerable number of individuals, between whose appearance and that of her ordinary subjects there was little difference. On her left hand were immediately three female attendants, young and pretty; at some distance from them, a troop of female slaves; and again, at a still further distance, another body of her subjects in their white turbans and their black dresses. The chamber was spacious, and rudely painted in the Ionic style.

'It is most undoubtedly requested, and in a vein of the most condescending friendship, by the perfectly irresistible Queen, that the princes should be seated,' said Keferinis, and accordingly Tancred occupied his allotted seat on the right of the Queen, though at some distance, and the young Emir filled his on the left. Fakredeen was dressed in Syrian splendour, a blaze of shawls and jewelled arms; but Tancred retained on this, as he had done on every other occasion, the European dress, though in the present instance it assumed a somewhat more brilliant shape than ordinary, in the dark green regimentals, the rich embroidery, and the flowing plume of the Bellamont yeomanry cavalry.

'You are a prince of the English,' said the Queen to Tancred.

'I am an Englishman,' he replied, 'and a subject of our Queen, for we also have the good fortune to be ruled over by the young and the fair.'

'My fathers and the House of Shehaab have been ever friends,' she continued, turning to Fakredeen.

'May they ever continue so!' he replied. 'For if the Shehaabs and the Ansarey are of one mind, Syria is no longer earth, but indeed paradise.'

'You live much in ships?' said the Queen, turning to Tancred.

'We are an insular people,' he answered, somewhat confusedly, but the perfectly-informed Keferinis came to the succour both of Tancred and of his sovereign.

'The English live in ships only during six months of the year, principally when they go to India, the rest entirely at their country houses.'

'Ships are required to take you to India?' said her Majesty.

Tancred bowed assent.

'Is your Queen about my age?'

'She was as young as your Majesty when she began to reign.'

'And how long has she reigned?'

'Some seven years or so.'

'Has she a castle?'

'Her Majesty generally resides in a very famous castle.'

'Very strong, I suppose?'

'Strong enough.'

'The Emir Bescheer remains at Stamboul?'

'He is now, I believe, at Brusa,' replied Fakredeen.

'Does he like Brusa?'

'Not as much at Stamboul.'

'Is Stamboul the largest city in the world?'

'I apprehend by no means,' said Fakredeen.

'What is larger?'

'London is larger, the great city of the English, from which the prince comes; Paris is also larger, but not so large as London.'

'How many persons are there in Stamboul?'

'More than half a million.'

'Have you seen Antakia (Antioch)?' the Queen inquired of Tancred.

'Not yet.'

'You have seen Beiroot?'

'I have.'

'Antakia is not nearly so great a place as Beiroot,' said the Queen; 'yet once Antakia was much larger than Stamboul; as large, perhaps, as your great city.'

'And far more beautiful than either,' said Tancred.

'Ah! you have heard of these things!' exclaimed the Queen, with much animation. 'Now tell me, why is Antakia no longer a great city, as great as Stamboul and the city of the English, and far more beautiful?'

'It is a question that might perplex the wise,' said Tancred.

'I am not wise,' said the Queen, looking earnestly at Tancred, 'yet I could solve it.'

'Would that your Majesty would deign to do so.'

'There are things to be said, and there are things not to be said,' was the reply, and the Queen looked at Keferinis.

'Her Majesty has expressed herself with infinite exactitude and with condescending propriety,' said the chief minister.

The Queen was silent for a moment, thoughtful, and then waved gracefully her hands; whereupon the chamber was immediately cleared. The princes, instructed by Keferinis, alone remained, with the exception of the minister, who, at the desire of his sovereign, now seated himself, but not on the divan. He sat opposite to the Queen on the floor.

'Princes,' said the Queen, 'you are welcome to Gindarics, where nobody ever comes. For we are people who wish neither to see nor to be seen. We are not like other people, nor do we envy other people. I wish not for the ships of the Queen of the English, and my subjects are content to live as their fathers lived before them. Our mountains are wild and barren; our vales require for their cultivation unceasing toil. We have no gold or silver, no jewels; neither have we silk. But we have some beautiful and consoling thoughts, and more than thoughts, which are shared by all of us and open to all of us, and which only we can value or comprehend. When Darkush, who dwells at Damascus, and was the servant of my father, sent to us the ever-faithful messenger, and said that there were princes who wished to confer with us, he knew well it was vain to send here men who would talk of the English and the Egyptians, of the Porte and of the nations of Fran-guestan. These things to us are like the rind of fruit. Neither do we care for cottons, nor for things which are sought for in the cities of the plains, and it may be, noble Emir, cherished also in the mountains of Lebanon. This is not Lebanon, but the mountains of the Ansarey, who are as they have ever been, before the name of Turk or English was known in Syria, and who will remain as they are, unless that happens which may never happen, but which is too beautiful not to believe may arrive. Therefore I speak to you with frankness, princes of strange countries: Dar-kush, the servant of my father, and also mine, told me, by the ever-faithful messenger, that it was not of these things, which are to us like water spilt on sand, that you wished to confer, but that there were things to be said which ought to be uttered. Therefore it is I sent back the faithful messenger, saying, "Send then these princes to Gindarics, since their talk is not of things which come and go, making a noise on the coast and in the cities of the plains, and then passing away." These we infinitely despise; but the words of truth uttered in the spirit of friendship will last, if they be grave, and on matters which authorise journeys made by princes to visit queens.'

Her Majesty ceased, and looked at Keferinis, who bowed profound approbation. Tancred and Fakre-deen, also exchanged glances, but the Emir waved his hand, signifying his wish that Tancred should reply, who, after a moment's hesitation, with an air of great deference, thus ventured to express himself:

'It seems to me and to my friend, the Prince of the Lebanon, that we have listened to the words of wisdom. They are in every respect just. We know not, ourselves, Darkush, but he was rightly informed when he apprised your Majesty that it was not upon ordinary topics, either political or commercial, that we desired to visit Gindarics. Nor was it out of such curiosity as animates travellers. For we are not travellers, but men who have a purpose which we wish to execute. The world, that, since its creation, has owned the spiritual supremacy of Asia, which is but natural, since Asia is the only portion of the world which the Creator of that world has deigned to visit, and in which he has ever conferred with man, is unhappily losing its faith in those ideas and convictions that hitherto have governed the human race. We think, therefore, the time has arrived when Asia should make one of its periodical and appointed efforts to reassert that supremacy. But though we are acting, as we believe, under a divine impulse, it is our duty to select the most fitting human agents to accomplish a celestial mission. We have thought, therefore, that it should devolve on Syria and Arabia, countries in which our God has even dwelt, and with which he has been from the earliest days in direct and regular communication, to undertake the solemn task. Two races of men, alike free, one inhabiting the desert, the other the mountains, untainted by any of the vices of the plains, and the virgin vigour of their intelligence not dwarfed by the conventional superstitions of towns and cities, one prepared at once to supply an unrivalled cavalry, the other an army ready equipped of intrepid foot-soldiers, appear to us to be indicated as the natural and united conquerors of the world. We wish to conquer that world, with angels at our head, in order that we may establish the happiness of man by a divine dominion, and crushing the political atheism that is now desolating existence, utterly extinguish the grovelling tyranny of self-government.'

The Queen of the Ansarey listened with deep and agitated attention to Tancred. When he had concluded, she said, after a moment's pause, 'I believe also in the necessity of the spiritual supremacy of our Asia. And since it has ceased, it seems not to me that man and man's life have been either as great or as beautiful as heretofore. What you have said assures me that it is well that you have come hither. But when you speak of Arabia, of what God is it you speak?'

'I speak of the only God, the Creator of all things, the God who spoke on the Arabian Mount Sinai, and expiated our sins upon the Syrian Mount Calvary.'

'There is also Mount Olympus,' said the Queen, 'which is in Anatolia. Once the gods dwelt there.'—'The gods of poets,' said Tancred. 'No; the gods of the people; who loved the people, and whom the people loved.'

There was a pause, broken by the Queen, who, looking at her minister, said, 'Noble Keferinis, the thoughts of these princes are divine, and in every respect becoming celestial things. Is it not well that the gates of the beautiful and the sacred should not be closed?'

'In every sense, irresistible Queen, it is well that the gates of the beautiful and the sacred should not be closed.'

'Then let them bring garlands. Princes,' the Queen continued, 'what the eye of no stranger has looked upon, you shall now behold. This also is Asian and divine.'

Immediately the chamber again filled. The Queen, looking at the two princes and bowing, rose from her seat. They instantly followed her example. One came forward, offering to the Queen, and then to each of them, a garland. Garlands were also taken by Keferinis and a few others. Cypros and her companions walked first, then Keferinis and one who had stood near the royal divan; the Queen, between her two guests, followed, and after her a small and ordered band.

They stopped before a lofty portal of bronze, evidently of ancient art.' This opened into a covered and excavated way, in some respects similar to that which had led them directly to the castle of Gin-darics; but, although obscure, not requiring artificial light, yet it was of no inconsiderable length. It emerged upon a platform cut out of the natural rock; on all sides were steep cliffs, above them the bright blue sky. The ravine appeared to be closed on every side.

The opposite cliff, at the distance of several hundred yards, reached by a winding path, presented, at first, the appearance of the front of an ancient temple; and Tancred, as he approached it, perceived that the hand of art had assisted the development of an imitation of nature: a pediment, a deep portico, supported by Ionic columns, and a flight of steps, were carved out of the cliff, and led into vast caverns, which art also had converted into lofty and magnificent chambers. When they had mounted the steps, the Queen and her companions lifted their garlands to the skies, and joined in a chorus, solemn and melodious, but which did not sound as the language of Syria. Passing through the portico, Tancred found himself apparently in a vast apartment, where he beheld a strange spectacle.

At the first glance it seemed that, ranged on blocks of the surrounding mountains, were a variety of sculptured figures of costly materials and exquisite beauty; forms of heroic majesty and ideal grace; and, themselves serene and unimpassioned, filling the minds of the beholders with awe and veneration. It was not until his eye was accustomed to the atmosphere, and his mind had in some degree recovered from the first strange surprise, that Tancred gradually recognised the fair and famous images over which his youth had so long and so early pondered. Stole over his spirit the countenance august, with the flowing beard and the lordly locks, sublime on his ivory throne, in one hand the ready thunderbolt, in the other the cypress sceptre; at his feet the watchful eagle with expanded wings: stole over the spirit of the gazing pilgrim, each shape of that refined and elegant hierarchy made for the worship of clear skies and sunny lands; goddess and god, genius and nymph, and faun, all that the wit and heart of man can devise and create, to represent his genius and his passion, all that the myriad developments of a beautiful nature can require for their personification. A beautiful and sometimes flickering light played over the sacred groups and figures, softening the ravages of time, and occasionally investing them with, as it were, a celestial movement.

'The gods of the Greeks!' exclaimed Tancred.

'The gods of the Ansarey,' said the Queen; 'the gods of my fathers!'

'I am filled with a sweet amazement,' murmured Tancred. 'Life is stranger than I deemed. My soul is, as it were, unsphered.'

'Yet you know them to be gods,' said the Queen; 'and the Emir of the Lebanon does not know them to be gods?'

'I feel that they are such,' said Fakredeen.

'How is this, then?' said the Queen. 'How is it that you, the child of a northern isle——'

'Should recognise the Olympian Jove,' said Tancred. 'It seems strange; but from my earliest youth I learnt these things.'

'Ah, then,' murmured the Queen to herself, and with an expression of the greatest satisfaction, 'Dar-kush was rightly informed; he is one of us.'

'I behold then, at last, the gods of the Ansarey,' said Fakredeen.

'All that remains of Antioch, noble Emir; of Anti-och the superb, with its hundred towers, and its sacred groves and fanes of flashing beauty.'

'Unhappy Asia!' exclaimed the Emir; 'thou hast indeed fallen!'

'When all was over,' said the Queen; 'when the people refused to sacrifice, and the gods, indignant, quitted earth, I hope not for ever, the faithful few fled to these mountains with the sacred images, and we have cherished them. I told you we had beautiful and consoling thoughts, and more than thoughts. All else is lost, our wealth, our arts, our luxury, our invention, all have vanished. The niggard earth scarcely yields us a subsistence; we dress like Kurds, feed hardly as well; but if we were to quit these mountains, and wander like them on the plains with our ample flocks, we should lose our sacred images, all the traditions that we yet cherish in our souls, that in spite of our hard lives preserve us from being barbarians; a sense of the beautiful and the lofty, and the divine hope that, when the rapidly consummating degradation of Asia has been fulfilled, mankind will return again to those gods who made the earth beautiful and happy; and that they, in their celestial mercy, may revisit that world which, without them, has become a howling wilderness.'

'Lady,' said Tancred, with much emotion, 'we must, with your permission, speak of these things. My heart is at present too full.'

'Come hither,' said the Queen, in a voice of great softness; and she led Tancred away.

They entered a chamber of much smaller dimensions, which might be looked upon as a chapel annexed to the cathedral or Pantheon which they had quitted. At each end of it was a statue. They paused before one. It was not larger than life, of ivory and gold; the colour purer than could possibly have been imagined, highly polished, and so little injured, that at a distance the general effect was not in the least impaired.

'Do you know that?' asked the Queen, as she looked at the statue, and then she looked at Tancred.

'I recognise the god of poetry and light,' said Tancred; 'Phoebus Apollo.'

'Our god: the god of Antioch, the god of the sacred grove! Who could look upon him, and doubt his deity!'

'Is this indeed the figure,' murmured Tancred, 'before which a hundred steers have bled? before which libations of honeyed wine were poured from golden goblets? that lived in a heaven of incense?'

'Ah! you know all.'

'Angels watch over us!' said Tancred, 'or my brain will turn. And who is this?'

'One before whom the pilgrims of the world once kneeled. This is the Syrian goddess; the Venus of our land, but called among us by a name which, by her favour, I also bear, Astarte.'



CHAPTER LIII.

Fakredeen's Plots

AND when did men cease from worshipping them?' asked Fakredeen of Tancred; 'before the Prophet?' 'When truth descended from Heaven in the person of Christ Jesus.'

'But truth had descended from Heaven before Jesus,' replied Fakredeen; 'since, as you tell me, God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, and since then to many of the prophets and the princes of Israel.'

'Of whom Jesus was one,' said Tancred; 'the descendant of King David as well as the Son of God. But through this last and greatest of their princes it was ordained that the inspired Hebrew mind should mould and govern the world. Through Jesus God spoke to the Gentiles, and not to the tribes of Israel only. That is the great worldly difference between Jesus and his inspired predecessors. Christianity is Judaism for the multitude, but still it is Judaism, and its development was the death-blow of the Pagan idolatry.'

'Gentiles,' murmured Fakredeen; 'Gentiles! you are a Gentile, Tancred?'

'Alas! I am,' he answered, 'sprung from a horde of Baltic pirates, who never were heard of during the greater annals of the world, a descent which I have been educated to believe was the greatest of honours. What we should have become, had not the Syro-Arabian creeds formed our minds, I dare not contemplate. Probably we should have perished in mutual destruction. However, though rude and modern Gentiles, unknown to the Apostles, we also were in time touched with the sacred symbol, and originally endowed with an organisation of a high class, for our ancestors wandered from Caucasus; we have become kings and princes.'

'What a droll thing is history,' said Fakredeen. 'Ah! if I were only acquainted with it, my education would be complete. Should you call me a Gentile?'

'I have great doubts whether such an appellation could be extended to the descendants of Ishmael. I always look upon you as a member of the sacred race. It is a great thing for any man; for you it may tend to empire.'

'Was Julius Caesar a Gentile?'

'Unquestionably.'

'And Iskander?' (Alexander of Macedon.)

'No doubt; the two most illustrious Gentiles that ever existed, and representing the two great races on the shores of the Mediterranean, to which the apostolic views were first directed.'

'Well, their blood, though Gentile, led to empire,' said Fakredeen.

'But what are their conquests to those of Jesus Christ?' said Tancred, with great animation. 'Where are their dynasties? where their subjects? They were both deified: who burns incense to them now? Their descendants, both Greek and Roman, bow before the altars of the house of David. The house of David is worshipped at Rome itself, at every seat of great and growing empire in the world, at London, at St. Petersburg, at New York. Asia alone is faithless to the Asian; but Asia has been overrun by Turks and Tatars. For nearly five hundred years the true Oriental mind has been enthralled. Arabia alone has remained free and faithful to the divine tradition. From its bosom we shall go forth and sweep away the moulding remnants of the Tataric system; and then, when the East has resumed its indigenous intelligence, when angels and prophets again mingle with humanity, the sacred quarter of the globe will recover its primeval and divine supremacy; it will act upon the modern empires, and the faint-hearted faith of Europe, which is but the shadow of a shade, will become as vigorous as befits men who are in sustained communication with the Creator.'

'But suppose,' said Fakredeen, in a captious tone that was unusual with him, 'suppose, when the Tataric system is swept away, Asia reverts to those beautiful divinities that we beheld this morning?'

More than once, since they quitted the presence of Astarte, had Fakredeen harped upon this idea. From that interview the companions had returned moody and unusually silent. Strange to say, there seemed a tacit understanding between them to converse little on that subject which mainly engrossed their minds. Their mutual remarks on Astarte were few and constrained; a little more diffused upon the visit to the temple; but they chiefly kept up the conventional chat of companionship by rather commonplace observations on Keferinis and other incidents and persons comparatively of little interest and importance.

After their audience, they dined with the minister, not exactly in the manner of Downing Street, nor even with the comparative luxury of Canobia; but the meal was an incident, and therefore agreeable. A good pilaff was more acceptable than some partridges dressed with oil and honey: but all Easterns are temperate, and travel teaches abstinence to the Franks. Neither Fakredeen nor Tancred were men who criticised a meal: bread, rice, and coffee, a bird or a fish, easily satisfied them. The Emir affected the Moslem when the minister offered him the wine of the mountains, which was harsh and rough after the delicious Vino d'Oro of Lebanon; but Tancred contrived to drink the health of Queen Astarte without any wry expression of countenance.

'I believe,' said Keferinis, 'that the English, in their island of London, drink only to women; the other natives of Franguestan chiefly pledge men; we look upon both as barbarous.'

'At any rate, you worship the god of wine,' remarked Tancred, who never attempted to correct the self-complacent minister. 'I observed to-day the statue of Bacchus.'

'Bacchus!' said Keferinis, with a smile, half of inquiry, half of commiseration. 'Bacchus: an English name, I apprehend! All our gods came from the ancient Antakia before either the Turks or the English were heard of. Their real names are in every respect sacred; nor will they be uttered, even to the Ansarey, until after the divine initiation has been performed in the perfectly admirable and inexpressibly delightful mysteries,' which meant, in simpler tongue, that Keferinis was entirely ignorant of the subject on which he was talking.

After their meal, Keferinis, proposing that in the course of the day they should fly one of the Queen's hawks, left them, when the conversation, of which we have given a snatch, occurred. Yet, as we have observed, they were on the whole moody and unusually silent. Fakredeen in particular was wrapped in reverie, and when he spoke, it was always in reference to the singular spectacle of the morning. His musing forced him to inquiry, having never before heard of the Olympian heirarchy, nor of the woods of Daphne, nor of the bright lord of the silver bow.

Why were they moody and silent?

With regard to Lord Montacute, the events of the morning might sufficiently account for the gravity of his demeanour, for he was naturally of a thoughtful and brooding temperament. This unexpected introduction to Olympus was suggestive of many reflections to one so habituated to muse over divine influences. Nor need it be denied that the character of the Queen greatly interested him. Her mind was already attuned to heavenly thoughts. She already believed that she was fulfilling a sacred mission. Tancred could not be blind to the importance of such a personage as Astarte in the great drama of divine regeneration, which was constantly present to his consideration. Her conversion might be as weighty as ten victories. He was not insensible to the efficacy of feminine influence in the dissemination of religious truth, nor unaware how much the greatest development of the Arabian creeds, in which the Almighty himself deigned to become a personal actor, was assisted by the sacred spell of woman. It is not the Empress Helene alone who has rivalled, or rather surpassed, the exploits of the most illustrious apostles. The three great empires of the age, France, England, and Russia, are indebted for their Christianity to female lips. We all remember the salutary influence of Clotilde and Bertha which bore the traditions of the Jordan to the Seine and the Thames: it should not be forgotten that to the fortunate alliance of Waldimir, the Duke of Moscovy, with the sister of the Greek Emperor Basil, is to be ascribed the remarkable circumstance, that the intellectual development of all the Russias has been conducted on Arabian principles. It was the fair Giselle, worthy successor of the softhearted women of Galilee, herself the sister of the Emperor Henry the Second, who opened the mind of her husband, the King of Hungary, to the deep wisdom of the Hebrews, to the laws of Moses and the precepts of Jesus. Poland also found an apostle and a queen in the sister of the Duke of Bohemia, and who revealed to the Sarmatian Micislas the ennobling mysteries of Sinai and of Calvary.