ad suffered during the wars and civil
conflicts which had of late years prevailed in Lebanon, and he was
evidently disinclined to mix in any movement which was not well matured
and highly promising of success. Fakredeen, of course, concealed his
ulterior purpose from the Druse, who associated with the idea of union
between the two nations merely the institution of a sole government
under one head, and that head a Shehaab, probably dwelling at Canobia.

'I have fought by the side of the Emir Bescheer,' said Hamood, 'and
would he were in his palace of Bteddeen at this moment! And the
Abunekeds rode with the Emir Yousef against Djezzar. It is not the House
of Abuneked that would say there should be two weak nations when there
might be one strong one. But what I say is sealed with the signet of
truth; it is known to the old, and it is remembered by the wise; the
Emir Bescheer has said it to me as many times as there are oranges on
that tree, and the Emir Yousef has said it to my father. The northern
passes are not guarded by Maronite or by Druse.'

'And as long as they are not guarded by us?' said Fakredeen,
inquiringly.

'We may have a sole prince and a single government,' continued Hamood,
'and the houses of the two nations may be brothers, but every now and
then the Osmanli will enter the mountain, and we shall eat sand.'

'And who holds the northern passes, noble Sheikh?' inquired Tancred.

'Truly, I believe,' replied Hamood, 'very sons of Eblis, for the whole
of that country is in the hands of Ansarey, and there never has been
evil in the mountain that they have not been against us.'

'They never would draw with the Shehaabs,' said Fakredeen; 'and I have
heard the Emir Bescheer say that, if the Ansarey had acted with him, he
would have baffled, in '40, both the Porte and the Pasha.'

'It was the same in the time of the Emir Yousef,' said Sheikh Hamood.
'They can bring twenty-five thousand picked men into the plain.'

'And I suppose, if it were necessary, would not be afraid to meet the
Osmanli in Anatoly?' said Fakredeen.

'If the Turkmans or the Kurds would join them,' said Sheikh Hamood,
'there is nothing to prevent their washing their horses' feet in the
Bosphorus.'

'It is strange,' said Fakredeen, 'but frequently as I have been at
Aleppo and Antioch, I have never been in their country. I have always
been warned against it, always kept from it, which indeed ought to have
prompted my earliest efforts, whe