tiquity. If you wish to free your country, and make the Syrians
a nation, it is not to be done by sending secret envoys to Paris or
London, cities themselves which are perhaps both doomed to fall; you
must act like Moses and Mahomet.'

'But you forget the religions,' said Fakredeen. 'I have so many
religions to deal with. If my fellows were all Christians, or all
Moslemin, or all Jews, or all Pagans, I grant you, something might be
effected: the cross, the crescent, the ark, or an old stone, anything
would do: I would plant it on the highest range in the centre of the
country, and I would carry Damascus and Aleppo both in one campaign;
but I am debarred from this immense support; I could only preach
nationality, and, as they all hate each other worse almost than they do
the Turks, that would not be very inviting; nationality, without race as
a plea, is like the smoke of this nargileh, a fragrant puff. Well, then,
there remains only personal influence: ancient family, vast possessions,
and traditionary power: mere personal influence can only be maintained
by management, by what you stigmatise as intrigue; and the most
dexterous member of the Shehaab family will be, in the long run, Prince
of Lebanon.'

'And if you wish only to be Prince of Lebanon, I dare say you may
succeed,' said Tancred, 'and perhaps with much less pains than you at
present give yourself. But what becomes of all your great plans of
an hour ago, when you were to conquer the East, and establish the
independence of the Oriental races?'

'Ah!' exclaimed Fakredeen with a sigh, 'these are the only ideas for
which it is worth while to live.'

'The world was never conquered by intrigue: it was conquered by faith.
Now, I do not see that you have faith in anything.'

'Faith,' said Fakredeen, musingly, as if his ear had caught the word
for the first time, 'faith! that is a grand idea. If one could only have
faith in something and conquer the world!'

'See now,' said Tancred, with unusual animation, 'I find no charm in
conquering the world to establish a dynasty: a dynasty, like everything
else, wears out; indeed, it does not last as long as most things; it
has a precipitate tendency to decay. There are reasons; we will not now
dwell on them. One should conquer the world not to enthrone a man,
but an idea, for ideas exist for ever. But what idea? There is the
touchstone of all philosophy! Amid the wreck of creeds, the crash of
empires, French revolutions,