the duke
gave Tancred permission to set out on his new crusade.

_II.--The Vigil by the Tomb_

The moon sank behind the Mount of Olives, leaving the towers, minarets,
and domes of Jerusalem in deep shadow; the lamps in the city went out,
and every outline was lost in gloom; but the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre still shone in the darkness like a beacon light. There, while
every soul in Jerusalem slumbered, Tancred knelt in prayer by the tomb
of Christ, under the lighted dome, waiting for the fire from heaven to
strike into his soul.

His strange vigil was the talk of Syria. It is remarkable how quickly
news travels in the East.

"Do you know," said Besso, Rothschild's agent, to his foster-son
Fakredeen, an emir of Lebanon, as they sat talking in a house near the
gate of Sion, "the young Englishman has brought me such a letter that if
he were to tell me to rebuild Solomon's temple, I must do it!"

"He must be fabulously rich!" said Fakredeen, with a sigh. "What has he
come here for? The English do not come on pilgrimages. They are all
infidels."

"Well, he has come on a pilgrimage," said Besso, "and he is the greatest
of English princes. He kneels all night and day in the church over
there."

Yes, after a week of solitude, fasting, and prayer, Tancred was keeping
vigil before the empty Sepulchre, where Tancred of Montacute had knelt
six hundred years before. Day after day, night after night, he prayed
for inspiration, but no divine voice broke in upon his impassioned
reveries. It was for him that Alonzo Lara, the prior of Terra Santa,
kept the light burning all night long at the Holy Sepulchre, for the
Spaniard had been moved by the deep faith of the young English nobleman.
And one day he said to him:

"Sinai led to Calvary. I think it would be wise for you to trace the
path backward from Calvary to Sinai."

It was extremely perilous at that time to adventure into the great
desert, for the wild Bedouin tribes were encamped there. But, in spite
of this, Tancred made arrangements with an Arabian chief, Sheikh Hassan,
and set out for Sinai at the head of a well-armed band of Arabs.

"Ah!" said the sheikh, as they entered the mountainous country, after a
three days' march across the wilderness. "Look at these tracks of horses
and camels in the defile. The marks are fresh. See that your guns are
primed!" he cried to his men.

As he spoke a troop of wild horsemen galloped down the ravine.

"Hassan," one of