blunder. You must have heard us
raging like a thousand Afrites. I never knew the great Sheikh so wild.'

'And why?'

'He should take a lesson from Mehemet Ali,' continued the Emir. 'Giving
up Syria, after the conquest, was a much greater sacrifice than giving
up plunder which he has not yet touched. And the great Pasha did it as
quietly as if he were marching into Stamboul instead, which he might
have done if he had been an Arab instead of a Turk. Everything comes
from Arabia, my dear Eva, at least everything that is worth anything. We
two ought to thank our stars every day that we were born Arabs.'

'And the great Sheikh still harps upon this ransom?' inquired Eva.

'He does, and most unreasonably. For, after all, what do we ask him to
give up? a bagatelle.'

'Hardly that,' said Eva; 'two millions of piastres can scarcely be
called a bagatelle.'

'It is not two millions of piastres,' said Fakre-deen; 'there is your
fallacy, 'tis the same as your grandfather's. In the first place, he
would have taken one million; then half belonged to me, which reduces
his share to five hundred thousand; then I meant to have borrowed his
share of him.'

'Borrowed his share!' said Eva.

'Of course I should have allowed him interest, good interest. What could
the great Sheikh want five hundred thousand piastres for? He has camels
enough; he has so many horses that he wants to change some with me for
arms at this moment. Is he to dig a hole in the sand by a well-side
to put his treasure in, like the treasure of Solomon; or to sew up
his bills of exchange in his turban? The thing is ridiculous, I never
contemplated, for a moment, that the great Sheikh should take any hard
piastres out of circulation, to lock them up in the wilderness. It might
disturb the currency of all Syria, upset the exchanges, and very much
injure your family, Eva, of whose interests I am never unmindful. I
meant the great Sheikh to invest his capital; he might have made a good
thing of it. I could have afforded to pay him thirty per cent, for his
share, and made as much by the transaction myself; for you see, as I am
paying sixty per cent, at Beiroot, Tripoli, Latakia, and every accursed
town of the coast at this moment. The thing is clear; and I wish you
would only get your father to view it in the same light, and we might do
immense things! Think of this, my Rose of Sharon, dear, dear Eva, think
of this; your father might make his fortune and mine too, if