ly rich, and, as they wanted arms, they meant to hold him to
the extraordinary ransom of two million piastres.

"My foster father will pay it," said Fakredeen. "He told me that he
would have to rebuild Solomon's temple if the English prince asked him
to. We will get him to help us rebuild Solomon's empire."

_III.--The Vision on the Mount_

On the wild granite scarp of Mount Sinai, about seven thousand feet
above the blue seas that lave its base, is a small plain hemmed in by
pinnacles of rock. In the centre of the plain are a cypress tree and a
fountain. This is the traditional scene of the greatest event in the
history of mankind. It was here that Moses received the divine laws on
which the civilisation of the world is based.

Tancred of Montacute knelt down on the sacred soil, and bowed his head
in prayer. Far below him, in one of the green-valleys sloping down to
the sea, Fakredeen and a band of Bedouins pitched their tents for the
night, and talked in awed tones of their strange companion. Wonderful is
the power of soul with which a great idea endues a man. The young emir
of Lebanon and his men were no longer the captors of Tancred, but his
followers. He had preached to them with the eyes of flame and the words
of fire of a prophet; and they now asked of him, not a ransom, but a
revelation. They wanted him to bring down from Sinai the new word of
power, which would bind their scattered tribes into a mighty nation,
with a divine mission for all the world.

What was this word to be? Tancred did not know any more than his
followers, and he knelt all day long under the Arabian sun, waiting for
the divine revelation. The sunlight faded, and the shadows fell around
him, and he still remained bowed in a strange, quiet ecstasy of
expectation. But at last, lifting up his eyes to the clear, starry sky
of Arabia, he prayed:

"O Lord God of Israel, I come to Thine ancient dwelling-place to pour
forth the heart of tortured Europe. Why does no impulse from Thy
renovating will strike again into the soul of man? Faith fades and duty
dies, and a profound melancholy falls upon the world. Our kings cannot
rule, our priests doubt, and our multitudes toil and moan, and call in
their madness upon unknown gods. If this transfigured mount may not
again behold Thee, if Thou wilt not again descend to teach and console
us, send, oh send, one of the starry messengers that guard Thy throne,
to save Thy creatures from their terrible d