he is "Hakeem," their divine, predestined
deliverer. The delusion grows upon himself; he succeeds triumphantly,
but in the very moment of triumph he loses faith in himself, the
imposture is all but discovered, and he dies, a victim of what was wrong
in him, while the salt of his noble and successful purpose keeps alive
his memory among his people. In striking contrast with Djabal stands
Loys, the frank, bright, young Breton knight, with his quick, generous
heart, his chivalrous straightforwardness of thought and action, his
earnest pity for the oppressed Druses, and his passionate love for the
Druse maiden Anael. Anael herself is one of the most "actual yet
uncommon" of the poet's women. She is a true daughter of the East, to
the finest fibre of her being. Her tender and fiery soul burns upward
through error and crime with a leaping, quenchless flame. She loves
Djabal, believing him to be "Hakeem" and divine, with a love which seems
to her too human, too much the love evoked by a mere man's nature. Her
attempt at adoration only makes him feel more keenly the fact of his
imposture. Misunderstanding his agitation and the broken words he lets
drop, she fancies he despises her, and feels impelled to do some great
deed, and so exalt herself to be worthy of him. Fired with enthusiasm,
she anticipates his crowning act, the act of liberation, and herself
slays the tyrannical Prefect. The magnificent scene in which this occurs
is the finest in the play, and there is a singularly impressive touch of
poetry and stagecraft in a certain line of it, where Djabal and Anael
meet, at the moment when she has done the deed which he is waiting to
do. Unconscious of what she has done, he tells her to go:--

"I slay him here,
And here you ruin all. Why speak you not?
Anael, the Prefect comes!" [ANAEL _screams_.]

There is drama in this stage direction. With this involuntary scream
(and the shudder and start aside one imagines, to see if the dead man
really is coming) a great actress might thrill an audience. Djabal,
horror-stricken at what she has done, confesses to her that he is no
Hakeem, but a mere man. After the first revulsion of feeling, her love,
hitherto questioned and hampered by her would-be adoration, burst forth
with a fuller flood. But she expects him to confess to the tribe. Djabal
refuses: he will carry through his scheme to the end. In the first flush
of her indignation at his unworthiness,