and hung his tent with
charms. O Rose of Sharon! Eva, beloved, darling Eva, I have faith in no
one but in you. See him, I beseech you, see him! If you but knew him,
if you had but listened to his voice, and felt the greatness of his
thoughts and spirit, it would not need that I should make this entreaty.
But, alas! you know him not; you have never listened to him; you have
never seen him; or neither he, nor I, nor any of us, would have been
here, and have been thus.'

CHAPTER XXXV.

_The New Crusader in Peril_

NOTWITHSTANDING all the prescient care of the Duke and Duchess of
Bellamont, it was destined that the stout arm of Colonel Brace should
not wave by the side of their son when he was first attacked by the
enemy, and now that he was afflicted by a most severe if not fatal
illness, the practised skill of the Doctor Roby was also absent. Fresh
exemplification of what all of us so frequently experience, that the
most sagacious and matured arrangements are of little avail; that no
one is present when he is wanted, and that nothing occurs as it was
foreseen. Nor should we forget that the principal cause of all these
mischances might perhaps be recognised in the inefficiency of the third
person whom the parents of Tancred had, with so much solicitude and at
so great an expense, secured to him as a companion and counsellor in his
travels. It cannot be denied that if the theological attainments of
the Rev. Mr. Bernard had been of a more profound and comprehensive
character, it is possible that Lord Montacute might have deemed it
necessary to embark upon this new crusade, and ultimately to find
himself in the deserts of Mount Sinai. However this may be, one thing
was certain, that Tancred had been wounded without a single sabre of
the Bellamont yeomanry being brandished in his defence; was now lying
dangerously ill in an Arabian tent, without the slightest medical
assistance; and perhaps was destined to quit this world, not only
without the consolation of a priest of his holy Church, but surrounded
by heretics and infidels.

'We have never let any of the savages come near my lord,' said Freeman
to Baroni, on his, return.

'Except the fair young gentleman,' added True-man, 'and he is a
Christian, or as good.'

'He is a prince,' said Freeman, reproachfully. 'Have I not told you so
twenty times? He is what they call in this country a Hameer, and lives
in a castle, where he wanted my lord to visit him. I only