found in the castle of Canobia. Baroni received them, on the watch
lest some cruising Sheikh should appropriate their resting-place. The
young-moon, almost as young and bright as it was two months before at
Gaza, suffused with lustre the beautiful garden of fruit and flowers
without. Under the balcony, Baroni had placed a divan with many
cushions, a lamp with burning coffee, and some fresh nargilehs.

'Thank God, we are alone!' exclaimed Fakredeen. 'Tell me, my Tancred,
what do you think of it all?'

CHAPTER XLIV.

_Fakredeen's Debts_

IT HAS been a great day,' said Tancred 'not to be forgotten.'

'Yes; but what do you think of them? Are they the fellows I described;
the men that might conquer the world?'

'To conquer the world depends on men not only being good soldiers, but
being animated by some sovereign principle that nothing can resist,'
replied Tancred.

'But that we have got,' rejoined Fakredeen.

'But have they got it?'

'We can give it to them.'

'I am not so sure of that. It seems to me that we are going to establish
a theocratic equality by the aid of the feudal system.'

'That is to say, their present system,' replied Fakredeen. 'Islamism
was propagated by men who were previously idolaters, and our principle
may be established by those whose practice at the present time is
directly opposed to it.'

'I still cling to my first idea of making the movement from the desert,'
said Tancred: 'the Arabians are entirely unsophisticated; they are now
as they were in the time of Mahomet, of Moses, of Abraham: a sublime
devotion is natural to them, and equality, properly developed, is in
fact the patriarchal principle.'

'But these are Arabians,' said Fakredeen; 'I am an Arabian; there is not
a mookatadgi, whatever his present creed, who does not come from Yemen,
or the Hedjaz, or the Nejid.'

'That is a great qualification,' said Tancred, musingly.

'And, see what men these are!' continued Fakredeen, with great
animation. 'Lebanon can send forth more than fifty thousand well-armed,
and yet let enough stay at home to guard the mulberry trees and the
women. Then you can keep them for nothing; a Bedouin is not more
temperate than a Druse, if he pleases: he will get through a campaign
on olives and cheese; they do not require even tents; they bivouac in a
sheepskin.'

'And yet,' said Tancred, 'though they have maintained themselves, they
have done nothing; now, the Arabs have always succeed