, by the diplomatic interference
of the Great Powers, and through the signature of certain articles of
peace to which we have alluded. His second object was to increase his
already considerable influence with these personages, by exhibiting
to them, as his guest and familiar friend, an English prince, whose
presence could only be accounted for by duties too grave for ordinary
envoys, and who was understood to represent, in their fullest sense, the
wealth and authority of the richest and most potent of nations.

The credulous air of Syria was favourable to the great mystification in
which Lord Montacute was an unconscious agent. It was as fully believed
in the mountain, by all the Habeishes and the Eldadahs, the Kazins and
the Elvasuds, the Elheires, and the Hai-dars, great Maronite families,
as well as by the Druse Djinblats and their rivals, the House of
Yezbeck, or the House of Talhook, or the House of Abuneked, that the
brother of the Queen of England was a guest at Canobia as it was in the
stony wilderness of Petrsea. Ahmet Raslan the Druse and Butros Kerauney
the Maronite, who agreed upon no other point, were resolved on this. And
was it wonderful, for Butros had already received privately two hundred
muskets since the arrival of Tancred, and Raslan had been promised in
confidence a slice of the impending English loan by Fakredeen?

The extraordinary attention, almost homage, which the Emir paid his
guest entirely authorised these convictions, although they could justify
no suspicion on the part of Tancred. The natural simplicity of his
manners, indeed, and his constitutional reserve, recoiled from the state
and ceremony with which he found himself frequently surrounded and too
often treated; but Fakredeen peremptorily stopped his remonstrances by
assuring him that it was the custom of the country, and that every one
present would be offended if a guest of distinction were not entertained
with this extreme respect. It is impossible to argue against the customs
of a country with which you are not acquainted, but coming home one
day from a hawking party, a large assembly of the most influential
chieftains, Fakredeen himself bounding on a Kochlani steed, and arrayed
in a dress that would have become Solyman the Magnificent, Tancred about
to dismount, the Lord of Canobia pushed forward, and, springing from his
saddle, insisted on holding the stirrup of Lord Montacute.

'I cannot permit this,' said Tancred, reddening,