ancred, 'and independently of such circumstances, I very much like
him.'

'I know nothing against the noble Emir,' said Baroni, 'and I am sure
he has been extremely polite and attentive to your lordship; but still
those Shehaabs, they are such a set, always after something!'

'He is ardent and ambitious,' said Tancred, 'and he is young. Are these
faults? Besides, he has not had the advantage of our stricter training.
He has been without guides; and is somewhat undisciplined, and
self-formed. But he has a great and interesting position, and is
brilliant and energetic. Providence may have appointed him to fulfil
great ends.'

'A Shehaab will look after the main chance,' said Baroni.

'But his main chance may be the salvation of his country,' said Tancred.

'Nothing can save his country,' said Baroni. 'The Syrians were ever
slaves.'

'I do not call them slaves now,' said Tancred; 'why, they are armed and
are warlike! All that they want is a cause.'

'And that they never will have,' said Baroni.

'Why?'

'The East is used up.'

'It is not more used up than when Mahomet arose,' said Tancred. 'Weak
and withering as may be the government of the Turks, it is not more
feeble and enervated than that of the Greek empire and the Chosroes.'

'I don't know anything about them,' replied Baroni; 'but I know there is
nothing to be done with the people here. I have seen something of them,'
said Baroni. 'M. de Sidonia tried to do something in '39, and, if there
had been a spark of spirit or of sense in Syria, that was the time,
but----' and here Baroni shrugged his shoulders.

'But what was your principle of action in '39?' inquired Tancred,
evidently interested.

'The only principle of action in this world,' said Baroni; 'we had
plenty of money; we might have had three millions.'

'And if you had had six, or sixteen, your efforts would have been
equally fruitless. I do not believe in national regeneration in the
shape of a foreign loan. Look at Greece! And yet a man might climb
Mount Carmel, and utter three words which would bring the Arabs again to
Grenada, and perhaps further.'

'They have no artillery,' said Baroni.

'And the Turks have artillery and cannot use it,' said Lord Montacute.
'Why, the most favoured part of the globe at this moment is entirely
defenceless; there is not a soldier worth firing at in Asia except the
Sepoys. The Persian, Assyrian, and Babylonian monarchies might be gained
in a morning with