Tancred Part 56

'It is very interesting,' murmured the Queen.

'It is more than interesting,' sighed Fakredeen. 'Ah! beautiful Astarte!

if you knew all, if you could form even the most remote idea of what I have suffered for this unknown faith;' and a pa.s.sionate tear quivered on the radiant cheek of the young prince.

'And yet you came here to preach the doctrines of another,' said Astarte.

'I came here to preach the doctrines of another!' replied Fakredeen, with an expression of contempt; his nostril dilated, his lip curled with scorn. 'This mad Englishman came here to preach the doctrines of another creed, and one with which it seems to me, he has as little connection as his frigid soil has with palm trees. They produce them, I am told, in houses of gla.s.s, and they force their foreign faith in the same manner; but, though they have temples, and churches, and mosques, they confess they have no miracles; they admit that they never produced a prophet; they own that no G.o.d ever spoke to their people, or visited their land; and yet this race, so peculiarly favoured by celestial communication, aspire to be missionaries!'

'I have much misapprehended you,' said Astarte; 'I thought you were both embarked in a great cause.'

'Ah, you learnt that from Darkush!' quickly replied Fakredeen. 'You see, beautiful Astarte, that I have no personal acquaintance with Darkush. It was the intendant of my companion who was his friend; and it is through him that Darkush has learnt anything that he has communicated. The mission, the project, was not mine; but when I found my comrade had the means, which had hitherto evaded me, of reaching Gindarics, I threw no obstacles in his crotchety course. On the contrary, I embraced the opportunity even with fervour, and far from discouraging my friend from views to which I know he is fatally, even ridiculously, wedded, I looked forward to this expedition as the possible means of diverting his mind from some opinions, and, I might add, some influences, which I am persuaded can eventually entail upon him nothing but disappointment and disgrace.' And here Fakredeen shook his head, with that air of confidential mystery which so cleverly piques curiosity.

'Whatever may be his fate,' said Astarte, in a tone of seriousness, 'the English prince does not seem to me to be a person who could ever experience disgrace.'

'No, no,' quickly replied his faithful friend; 'of course I did not speak of personal dishonour. He is extremely proud and rash, and not in any way a practical man; but he is not a person who ever would do anything to be sent to the bagnio or the galleys. What I mean by disgrace is, that he is mixed up with transactions, and connected with persons who will damage, cheapen, in a worldly sense dishonour him, destroy all his sources of power and influence. For instance, now, in his country, in England, a Jew is never permitted to enter England; they may settle in Gibraltar, but in England, no. Well, it is perfectly well known among all those who care about these affairs, that this enterprise of his, this religious-politico-military adventure, is merely undertaken because he happens to be desperately enamoured of a Jewess at Damascus, whom he cannot carry home as his bride.'

'Enamoured of a Jewess at Damascus!' said Astarte, turning pale.

'To folly, to frenzy; she is at the bottom of the whole of this affair; she talks Cabala to him, and he Nazareny to her; and so, between them, they have invented this grand scheme, the conquest of Asia, perhaps the world, with our Syrian sabres, and we are to be rewarded for our pains by eating pa.s.sover cakes.'

'What are they?'

'Festival bread of the Hebrews, made in the new moon, with the milk of he-goats.'

'What horrors!'

'What a reward for conquest!'

'Will the Queen of the English let one of her princes marry a Jewess?'

'Never; he will be beheaded, and she will be burnt alive, eventually; but, in the meantime, a great deal of mischief may occur, unless we stop it.'

'It certainly should be stopped.'

'What amuses me most in this affair,' continued Fakredeen, 'is the cool way in which this Englishman comes to us for our a.s.sistance. First, he is at Can.o.bia, then at Gindarics; we are to do the business, and Syria is spoken of as if it were nothing. Now the fact is, Syria is the only practical feature of the case. There is no doubt that, if we were all agreed, if Lebanon and the Ansarey were to unite, we could clear Syria of the Turks, conquer the plain, and carry the whole coast in a campaign, and no one would ever interfere to disturb us. Why should they? The Turks could not, and the natives of Fran-guestan would not.

Leave me to manage them. There is nothing in the world I so revel in as hocus-sing Guizot and Aberdeen. You never heard of Guizot and Aberdeen?

They are the two Reis Effendis of the King of the French and the Queen of the English. I sent them an archbishop last year, one of my fellows, Archbishop Murad, who led them a pretty dance. They nearly made me King of the Lebanon, to put an end to disturbances which never existed except in the venerable Murad's representations.'

'These are strange things! Has she charms, this Jewess? Very beautiful, I suppose?'

'The Englishman vows so; he is always raving of her; talks of her in his sleep.'

'As you say, it would indeed be strange to draw our sabres for a Jewess.

Is she dark or fair?'

'I think, when he writes verses to her, he always calls her a moon or a star; that smacks nocturnal and somewhat sombre.'

'I detest the Jews; but I have heard their women are beautiful.'

'We will banish them all from our kingdom of Syria,' said Fakredeen, looking at Astarte earnestly.

'Why, if we are to make a struggle, it should be for something. There have been Syrian kingdoms.'

'And shall be, beauteous Queen, and you shall rule them. I believe now the dream of my life will be realised.'

'Why, what's that?'

'My mother's last aspiration, the dying legacy of her pa.s.sionate soul, known only to me, and never breathed to human being until this moment.'

'Then you recollect your mother?'

'It was my nurse, long since dead, who was the depositary of the injunction, and in due time conveyed it to me.'

'And what was it?'

'To raise, at Deir el Kamar, the capital of our district, a marble temple to the Syrian G.o.ddess.'

'Beautiful idea!'

'It would have drawn back the mountain to the ancient faith; the Druses are half-prepared, and wait only my word.'

'But the Nazareny bishops,' said the Queen, 'whom you find so useful, what will they say?'

'What did the priests and priestesses of the Syrian G.o.ddess say, when Syria became Christian? They turned into bishops and nuns. Let them turn back again.'

CHAPTER LV.

_Capture of a Harem_

TANCRED and Fakredeen had been absent from Gindarics for two or three days, making an excursion in the neighbouring districts, and visiting several of those chieftains whose future aid might be of much importance to them. Away from the unconscious centre of many pa.s.sions and intrigues, excited by the novelty of their life, sanguine of the ultimate triumph of his manoeuvres, and at times still influenced by his companion, the demeanour of the young Emir of Lebanon to his friend resumed something of its wonted softness, confidence, and complaisance.

They were once more in sight of the wild palace-fort of Astarte; spurring their horses, they dashed before their attendants over the plain, and halted at the huge portal of iron, while the torches were lit, and preparations were made for the pa.s.sage of the covered way.

When they entered the princ.i.p.al court, there were unusual appearances of some recent and considerable occurrence: groups of Turkish soldiers, disarmed, reclining camels, baggage and steeds, and many of the armed tribes of the mountain.

'What is all this?' inquired Fakredeen.

''Tis the harem of the Pasha of Aleppo,' replied a warrior, 'captured on the plain, and carried up into the mountains to our Queen of queens.'

'The war begins,' said Fakredeen, looking round at Tancred with a glittering eye.

'Women make war on women,' he replied.

''Tis the first step,' said the Emir, dismounting; 'I care not how it comes. Women are at the bottom of everything. If it had not been for the Sultana Mother, I should have now been Prince of the Mountain.'

When they had regained their apartments the lordly Keferinis soon appeared, to offer them his congratulations on their return. The minister was peculiarly refined and mysterious this morning, especially with respect to the great event, which he involved in so much of obscurity, that, after much conversation, the travellers were as little acquainted with the occurrence as when they entered the courtyard of Gindarics.