upon him nothing but disappointment
and disgrace.' And here Fakredeen shook his head, with that air of
confidential mystery which so cleverly piques curiosity.

'Whatever may be his fate,' said Astarte, in a tone of seriousness,
'the English prince does not seem to me to be a person who could ever
experience disgrace.'

'No, no,' quickly replied his faithful friend; 'of course I did not
speak of personal dishonour. He is extremely proud and rash, and not
in any way a practical man; but he is not a person who ever would
do anything to be sent to the bagnio or the galleys. What I mean by
disgrace is, that he is mixed up with transactions, and connected with
persons who will damage, cheapen, in a worldly sense dishonour him,
destroy all his sources of power and influence. For instance, now, in
his country, in England, a Jew is never permitted to enter England; they
may settle in Gibraltar, but in England, no. Well, it is perfectly well
known among all those who care about these affairs, that this enterprise
of his, this religious-politico-military adventure, is merely undertaken
because he happens to be desperately enamoured of a Jewess at Damascus,
whom he cannot carry home as his bride.'

'Enamoured of a Jewess at Damascus!' said Astarte, turning pale.

'To folly, to frenzy; she is at the bottom of the whole of this affair;
she talks Cabala to him, and he Nazareny to her; and so, between them,
they have invented this grand scheme, the conquest of Asia, perhaps the
world, with our Syrian sabres, and we are to be rewarded for our pains
by eating passover cakes.'

'What are they?'

'Festival bread of the Hebrews, made in the new moon, with the milk of
he-goats.'

'What horrors!'

'What a reward for conquest!'

'Will the Queen of the English let one of her princes marry a Jewess?'

'Never; he will be beheaded, and she will be burnt alive, eventually;
but, in the meantime, a great deal of mischief may occur, unless we stop
it.'

'It certainly should be stopped.'

'What amuses me most in this affair,' continued Fakredeen, 'is the cool
way in which this Englishman comes to us for our assistance. First, he
is at Canobia, then at Gindarics; we are to do the business, and Syria
is spoken of as if it were nothing. Now the fact is, Syria is the only
practical feature of the case. There is no doubt that, if we were all
agreed, if Lebanon and the Ansarey were to unite, we could clear
Syria of the Turks, conquer the pla