and the gods, indignant, quitted earth, I hope not for ever,
the faithful few fled to these mountains with the sacred images, and we
have cherished them. I told you we had beautiful and consoling thoughts,
and more than thoughts. All else is lost, our wealth, our arts, our
luxury, our invention, all have vanished. The niggard earth scarcely
yields us a subsistence; we dress like Kurds, feed hardly as well; but
if we were to quit these mountains, and wander like them on the plains
with our ample flocks, we should lose our sacred images, all the
traditions that we yet cherish in our souls, that in spite of our hard
lives preserve us from being barbarians; a sense of the beautiful and
the lofty, and the divine hope that, when the rapidly consummating
degradation of Asia has been fulfilled, mankind will return again to
those gods who made the earth beautiful and happy; and that they, in
their celestial mercy, may revisit that world which, without them, has
become a howling wilderness.'

'Lady,' said Tancred, with much emotion, 'we must, with your permission,
speak of these things. My heart is at present too full.'

'Come hither,' said the Queen, in a voice of great softness; and she led
Tancred away.

They entered a chamber of much smaller dimensions, which might be looked
upon as a chapel annexed to the cathedral or Pantheon which they had
quitted. At each end of it was a statue. They paused before one. It was
not larger than life, of ivory and gold; the colour purer than could
possibly have been imagined, highly polished, and so little injured,
that at a distance the general effect was not in the least impaired.

'Do you know that?' asked the Queen, as she looked at the statue, and
then she looked at Tancred.

'I recognise the god of poetry and light,' said Tancred; 'Phoebus
Apollo.'

'Our god: the god of Antioch, the god of the sacred grove! Who could
look upon him, and doubt his deity!'

'Is this indeed the figure,' murmured Tancred, 'before which a hundred
steers have bled? before which libations of honeyed wine were poured
from golden goblets? that lived in a heaven of incense?'

'Ah! you know all.'

'Angels watch over us!' said Tancred, 'or my brain will turn. And who is
this?'

'One before whom the pilgrims of the world once kneeled. This is the
Syrian goddess; the Venus of our land, but called among us by a name
which, by her favour, I also bear, Astarte.'

CHAPTER LIII.

_Fakredeen's Pl