‘Of course I should have allowed him interest, good interest. What could the great Sheikh want five hundred thousand piastres for? He has camels enough; he has so many horses that he wants to change some with me for arms at this moment. Is he to dig a hole in the sand by a well-side to put his treasure in, like the treasure of Solomon; or to sew up his bills of exchange in his turban? The thing is ridiculous, I never contemplated, for a moment, that the great Sheikh should take any hard piastres out of circulation, to lock them up in the wilderness. It might disturb the currency of all Syria, upset the exchanges, and very much injure your family, Eva, of whose interests I am never unmindful. I meant the great Sheikh to invest his capital; he might have made a good thing of it. I could have afforded to pay him thirty per cent, for his share, and made as much by the transaction myself; for you see, as I am paying sixty per cent, at Beiroot, Tripoli, Latakia, and every accursed town of the coast at this moment. The thing is clear; and I wish you would only get your father to view it in the same light, and we might do immense things! Think of this, my Rose of Sharon, dear, dear Eva, think of this; your father might make his fortune and mine too, if he would only lend me money at thirty per cent.’ ‘You frighten me always, Fakredeen, by these allusions to your affairs. Can it be possible that they are so very bad!’ ‘Good, Eva, you mean good. I should be incapable of anything, if it were not for my debts. I am naturally so indolent, that if I did not remember in the morning that I was ruined, I should never be able to distinguish myself.’ ‘You never will distinguish yourself,’ said Eva; ‘you never can, with these dreadful embarrassments.’ ‘Shall I not?’ said Fakredeen, triumphantly. ‘What are my debts to my resources? That is the point. You cannot judge of a man by only knowing what his debts are; you must be acquainted with his resources.’ ‘But your estates are mortgaged, your crops sold, at least you tell me so,’ said Eva, mournfully. ‘Estates! crops! A man may have an idea worth twenty estates, a principle of action that will bring him in a greater harvest than all Lebanon.’ ‘A principle of action is indeed precious,’ said Eva; ‘but although you certainly have ideas, and very ingenious ones, a principle of action is exactly the thing which I have always thought you wanted.’ ‘Well, I have got it at last,’ said Fakredeen; ‘everything comes if a man will only wait.’ ‘And what is your principle of action?’ ‘Faith.’ ‘In yourself? Surely in that respect you have not hitherto been sceptical?’ ‘No; in Mount Sinai.’ ‘In Mount Sinai!’