Tancred re-entered his tent, and, reclining, fell into a reverie of distracting thoughts. The history of his life and mind seemed with a whirling power to pass before him; his birth, in clime unknown to the Patriarchs; his education, unconsciously to himself, in an Arabian literature; his imbibing, from his tender infancy, oriental ideas and oriental creeds; the contrast that the occidental society in which he had been reared presented to them; his dissatisfaction with that social system; his conviction of the growing melancholy of enlightened Europe, veiled, as it may be, with sometimes a conceited bustle, sometimes a desperate shipwreck gaiety, sometimes with all the exciting empiricism of science; his perplexity that, between the Asian revelation and the European practice there should be so little conformity, and why the relations between them should be so limited and imperfect; above all, his passionate desire to penetrate the mystery of the elder world, and share its celestial privileges and divine prerogative. Tancred sighed. He looked round; some one had gently drawn his hand. It was the young Emir kneeling, his beautiful blue eyes bedewed with tears. ‘You are unhappy, said Fakredeen, in a tone of plaintiveness. ‘It is the doom of man,’ replied Tancred; ‘and in my position sadness should not seem strange.’ ‘The curse of ten thousand mothers on those who made you a prisoner; the curse of twenty thousand mothers on him who inflicted on you a wound!’ ‘’Tis the fortune of life,’ said Tancred, more cheerfully; ‘and in truth I was perhaps thinking of other things.’ ‘Do you know why I trouble you when your heart is dark?’ said the young Emir. ‘See now, if you will it, you are free. The great Sheikh has consented that you should go to Sinai. I have two dromedaries here, fleeter than the Kamsin. At the well of Mokatteb, where we encamp for the night, I will serve raki to the Bedouins; I have some with me, strong enough to melt the snow of Lebanon; if it will not do, they shall smoke some timbak, that will make them sleep like pashas. I know this desert as a man knows his father’s house; we shall be at Hebron before they untie their eyelids. Tell me, is it good?’ ‘Were I alone,’ said Tancred, ‘without a single guard, I must return.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I have pledged the word of a Christian noble.’ ‘To a man who does not believe in Christ. Faugh! Is it not itself a sin to keep faith with heretics?’ ‘But is he one?’ said Tancred. ‘He believes in Moses; he disbelieves in none of the seed of Abraham. He is of that seed himself! Would I were such a heretic as Sheikh Amalek!’ ‘If you will only pay me a visit in the Lebanon, I would introduce you to our patriarch, and he would talk as much theology with you as you like. For my own part it is not a kind of knowledge that I have much cultivated; you know I am peculiarly situated, we have so many religions on the mountain; but time presses; tell me, my prince, shall Hebron be our point?’