Tancred Part 30

'Tell the prince that, when the morning comes, he will find I am his brother.' So saying, the great Sheikh took his pipe from his mouth and gave it to Tancred: the greatest of distinctions. In a few moments, pipes were also brought to Sheikh Ha.s.san and Baroni.

'No harm can come to you, my lord, after smoking that pipe,' said Baroni. 'We must make the best of affairs. I have been in worse straits with M. de Sidonia. What think you of Malay pirates? These are all gentlemen.'

While Baroni was speaking, a young man slowly and with dignity pa.s.sed through the bystanders, advanced, and, looking very earnestly at Tancred, seated himself on the same carpet as the grand Sheikh. This action alone would have betokened the quality of the newcomer, had not his kefia, similar to that of Sheikh Amalek, and his whole bearing, clearly denoted his princely character. He was very young; and Tancred, while he was struck by his earnest gaze, was attracted by his physiognomy, which, indeed, from its refined beauty and cast of impa.s.sioned intelligence, was highly interesting.

Preparations all this time had been making for the feast. Half a dozen sheep had been given to the returning band; everywhere resounded the grinding of coffee; men pa.s.sed, carrying pitchers of leban and panniers of bread cakes hot from their simple oven. The great Sheikh, who had asked many questions after the oriental fashion: which was the most powerful nation, England or France; what was the name of a third European nation of which he had heard, white men with flat noses in green coats; whether the nation of white men with flat noses in green coats could have taken Acre as the English had, the taking of Acre being the test of military prowess; how many horses the Queen of the English had, and how many slaves; whether English pistols are good; whether the English drink wine; whether the English are Christian giaours or Pagan giaours? and so on, now invited Tancred, Sheikh Ha.s.san, and two or three others, to enter his pavilion and partake of the banquet.

'The Sheikh must excuse me,' said Tancred to Baroni; 'I am wearied and wounded. Ask if I can retire and have a tent.'

'Are you wounded?' said the young Sheikh, who was sitting on the carpet of Amalek, and speaking, not only in a tone of touching sympathy, but in the language of Franguestan.

'Not severely,' said Tancred, less abruptly than he had yet spoken, for the manner and the appearance of the youth touched him, 'but this is my first fight, and perhaps I make too much of it. However, my arm is painful and stiff, and indeed, you may conceive after all this, I could wish for a little repose.'

'The great Sheikh has allotted you a compartment of his pavilion,'

said the youth; 'but it will prove a noisy resting-place, I fear, for a wounded man. I have a tent here, an humbler one, but which is at least tranquil. Let me be your host!'

'You are most gracious, and I should be much inclined to be your guest, but I am a prisoner,' he said, haughtily, 'and cannot presume to follow my own will.'

'I will arrange all,' said the youth, and he conversed with Sheikh Amalek for some moments. Then they all rose, the young man advancing to Tancred, and saying in a sweet coaxing voice, 'You are under my care.

I will not be a cruel gaoler; I could not be to you.' So saying, making their reverence to the great Sheikh, the two young men retired together from the arena. Baroni would have followed them, when the youth stopped him, saying, with decision, 'The great Sheikh expects your presence; you must on no account be absent. I will tend your chief: you will permit me?' he inquired in a tone of sympathy, and then, offering to support the arm of Tancred, he murmured, 'It kills me to think that you are wounded.'

Tancred was attracted to the young stranger: his prepossessing appearance, his soft manners, the contrast which they afforded to all around, and to the scenes and circ.u.mstances which Tancred had recently experienced, were winning. Tancred, therefore, gladly accompanied him to his pavilion, which was pitched outside the amphitheatre, and stood apart. Notwithstanding the modest description of his tent by the young Sheikh, it was by no means inconsiderable in size, for it possessed several compartments, and was of a different colour and fashion from those of the rest of the tribe. Several steeds were picketed in Arab fashion near its entrance, and a group of attendants, smoking and conversing with great animation, were sitting in a circle close at hand.

They pressed their hands to their hearts as Tancred and his host pa.s.sed them, but did not rise. Within the pavilion, Tancred found a luxurious medley of cushions and soft carpets, forming a delightful divan; pipes and arms, and, to his great surprise, several numbers of a French newspaper published at Smyrna.

'Ah!' exclaimed Tancred, throwing himself on the divan, 'after all I have gone through to-day, this is indeed a great and an unexpected relief.'

''Tis your own divan,' said the young Arab, clapping his hands; 'and when I have given some orders for your comfort, I shall only be your guest, though not a distant one.' He spoke some words in Arabic to an attendant who entered, and who returned very shortly with a silver lamp fed with palm oil, which he placed on the ground.

'I have two poor Englishmen here,' said Tancred, 'my servants; they must be in sad straits; unable to speak a word----'

'I will give orders that they shall attend you. In the meantime you must refresh yourself, however lightly, before you repose.' At this moment there entered the tent several attendants with a variety of dishes, which Tancred would have declined, but the young Sheikh, selecting one of them, said, 'This, at least, I must urge you to taste, for it is a favourite refreshment with us after great fatigue, and has some properties of great virtue.' So saying, he handed to Tancred a dish of bread, dates, and prepared cream, which Tancred, notwithstanding his previous want of relish, cheerfully admitted to be excellent. After this, as Tancred would partake of no other dish, pipes were brought to the two young men, who, reclining on the divan, smoked and conversed.

'Of all the strange things that have happened to me to-day,' said Tancred, 'not the least surprising, and certainly the most agreeable, has been making your acquaintance. Your courtesy has much compensated me for the rude treatment of your tribe; but, I confess, such refinement is what, under any circ.u.mstances, I should not have expected to find among the tents of the desert, any more than this French journal.'

'I am not an Arab,' said the young man, speaking slowly and with an air of some embarra.s.sment.

'Ah!' exclaimed Tancred.

'I am a Christian prince.'

'Yes!'

'A prince of the Lebanon, devoted to the English, and one who has suffered much in their cause.'

'You are not a prisoner here, like myself?'

'No, I am here, seeking some a.s.sistance for those sufferers who should be my subjects, were I not deprived of my sceptre, and they of a prince whose family has reigned over and protected them for more than seven centuries. The powerful tribe of which Sheikh Amalek is the head often pitch their tents in the great Syrian desert, in the neighbourhood of Damascus, and there are affairs in which they can aid my unhappy people.'

'It is a great position, yours,' said Tancred, in an animated tone, 'at the same time a Syrian and a Christian prince!'

'Yes,' said the young Emir, eagerly, 'if the English would only understand their own interests, with my co-operation Syria might be theirs.'

'The English!' said Tancred, 'why should the English take Syria?'

'France will take it if they do not.'

'I hope not,' said Tancred.

'But something must be done,' said the Emir. 'The Porte never could govern it. Do you think anybody in Lebanon really cares for the Pasha of Damascus? If the Egyptians had not disarmed the mountain, the Turks would be driven out of Syria in a week.'

'A Syrian and a Christian prince!' said Tancred, musingly. 'There are elements in that position stronger than the Porte, stronger than England, stronger than united Europe. Syria was a great country when France and England were forests. The tricolour has crossed the Alps and the Rhine, and the flag of England has beaten even the tricolour; but if I were a Syrian prince, I would raise the cross of Christ and ask for the aid of no foreign banner.'

'If I could only raise a loan,' said the Emir, 'I could do without France and England.'

'A loan!' exclaimed Tancred; 'I see the poison of modern liberalism has penetrated even the desert. Believe me, national redemption is not an affair of usury.'

At this moment there was some little disturbance without the tent, which it seems was occasioned by the arrival of Tancred's servants, Freeman and True-man. These excellent young men persisted in addressing the Arabs in their native English, and, though we cannot for a moment believe that they fancied themselves understood, still, from a mixture of pride and perverseness peculiarly British, they continued their valuable discourse as if every word told, or, if not apprehended, was a striking proof of the sheer stupidity of their new companions. The noise became louder and louder, and at length Freeman and Trueman entered.

'Well,' said Tancred, 'and how have you been getting on?'

'Well, my lord, I don't know,' said Freeman, with a sort of jolly sneer; 'we have been dining with the savages.'

'They are not savages, Freeman.'

'Well, my lord, they have not much more clothes, anyhow; and as for knives and forks, there is not such a thing known.'

'As for that, there was not such a thing known as a fork in England little more than two hundred years ago, and we were not savages then; for the best part of Montacute Castle was built long before that time.'

'I wish we were there, my lord!'

'I dare say you do: however, we must make the best of present circ.u.mstances. I wanted to know, in the first place, whether you had food; as for lodging, Mr. Baroni, I dare say, will manage something for you; and if not, you had better quarter yourselves by the side of this tent. With your own cloaks and mine, you will manage very well.'

'Thank you, my lord. We have brought your lordship's things with us. I don't know what I shall do to-morrow about your lordship's boots. The savages have got hold of the bottle of blacking and have been drinking it like anything.'

'Never mind my boots,' said Tancred, 'we have got other things to think of now.'

'I told them what it was,' said Freeman, 'but they went on just the same.'

'Obstinate dogs!' said Tancred.

'I think they took it for wine, my lord,' said Trueman. 'I never see such ignorant creatures.'

'You find now the advantage of a good education, Trueman.'

'Yes, my lord, we do, and feel very grateful to your lordship's honoured mother for the same. When we came down out of the mountains and see those blazing fires, if I didn't think they were going to burn us alive, unless we changed our religion! I said the catechism as hard as I could the whole way, and felt as much like a blessed martyr as could be.'

'Well, well,' said Tancred, 'I dare say they will spare our lives. I cannot much a.s.sist you here; but if there be anything you particularly want, I will try and see what can be done.'

Freeman and Trueman looked at each other, and their speaking faces held common consultation. At length, the former, with some slight hesitation, said, 'We don't like to be troublesome, my lord, but if your lordship would ask for some sugar for us; we cannot drink their coffee without sugar.'