d intelligence of Tancred, trained in all
the philosophy and cultured with all the knowledge of the West, acted
with magnetic power upon a consciousness the bright vivacity of which
was only equalled by its virgin ignorance of all that books can teach,
and of those great conclusions which the studious hour can alone
elaborate. Fakredeen hung upon his accents like a bee, while Tancred
poured forth, without an effort, the treasures of his stored memory and
long musing mind. He went on, quite unconscious that his companion was
devoid of that previous knowledge, which, with all other persons, would
have been a preliminary qualification for a profitable comprehension of
what he said. Fakredeen gave him no hint of this: the young Emir trusted
to his quick perception to sustain him, although his literary training
was confined to an Arabic grammar, some sentences of wise men, some
volumes of poetry, and mainly and most profitably to the clever Courier
de Smyrne, and occasionally a packet of French journals which he
obtained from a Levantine consul.

It was therefore with a feeling not less than enthusiastic that
Fakredeen responded to the suggestive influence of Tancred. The want
that he had long suffered from was supplied, and the character he had
long mused over had appeared. Here was a vast theory to be reduced to
practice, and a commanding mind to give the leading impulse. However
imperfect may have been his general conception of the ideas of Tancred,
he clearly comprehended that their fulfilment involved his two great
objects, change and action. Compared with these attainments on a great
scale, his present acquisition and position sank into nothingness. A
futurity consisting of a Syrian Emirate and a mountain castle figured as
intolerable, and Fakredeen, hoping all things and prepared for anything,
flung to the winds all consideration for his existing ties, whether in
the shape of domains or of debts.

The imperturbable repose, the grave and thoughtful daring, with which
Tancred developed his revolutionary projects, completed the power with
which he could now dispose of the fate of the young Emir. Sometimes,
in fluttering moments of disordered reverie, Fakredeen had indulged in
dreams of what, with his present companion, it appeared was to be the
ordinary business of their lives, and which he discussed with a calm
precision which alone half convinced Fakredeen of their feasibility.
It was not for an impassioned votary to