begged your permission to thank you in person to-morrow, I had not
imagined that I should have been so wilful as to quit the tent tonight.'

'It will not harm you,' said Eva; 'our Arabian nights bear balm.'

'I feel it,' said Tancred; 'this evening will complete the cure you so
benignantly commenced.'

'Mine were slender knowledge and simple means,' said Eva; 'but I rejoice
that they were of use, more especially as I learn that we are all
interested in your pilgrimage.

'The Emir Fakredeen has spoken to you?' said Tancred, inquiringly, and
with a countenance a little agitated.

'He has spoken to me of some things for which our previous conversation
had not entirely unprepared me.'

'Ah!' said Tancred, musingly, 'our previous conversation. It is not
very long ago since I slumbered by the side of your fountain, and yet it
seems to me an age, an age of thought and events.'

'Yet even then your heart was turned towards our unhappy Asia,' said the
Lady of Bethany.

'Unhappy Asia! Do you call it unhappy Asia! This land of divine deeds
and divine thoughts! Its slumber is more vital than the waking life of
the rest of the globe, as the dream of genius is more precious than
the vigils of ordinary men. Unhappy Asia, do you call it? It is the
unhappiness of Europe over which I mourn.'

'Europe, that has conquered Hindustan, protects Persia and Asia Minor,
affects to have saved Syria,' said Eva, with some bitterness. 'Oh! what
can we do against Europe?'

'Save it,' said Tancred.

'We cannot save ourselves; what means have we to save others?'

'The same you have ever exercised, Divine Truth. Send forth a great
thought, as you have done before, from Mount Sinai, from the villages of
Galilee, from the deserts of Arabia, and you may again remodel all
their institutions, change their principles of action, and breathe a new
spirit into the whole scope of their existence.'

'I have sometimes dreamed such dreams,' murmured Eva, looking down. 'No,
no,' she exclaimed, raising her head, after a moment's pause, 'it is
impossible. Europe is too proud, with its new command over nature, to
listen even to prophets. Levelling mountains, riding without horses,
sailing without winds, how can these men believe that there is any
power, human or divine, superior to themselves?'

'As for their command over nature,'said Tancred, 'let us see how it will
operate in a second deluge. Command over nature! Why, the humblest root
that serves fo