o late,' said Astarte. 'It was an enemy's arm that
undertook the deed.'

'An enemy! What enemy among your people could the daughter of Besso have
found?'

'A deadly one, who seized the occasion offered to a long cherished
vengeance; one who for years has been alike the foe and the victim of
her race and house. There is no hope!'

'I am indeed amazed. Who could this be?'

'Your friend; at least, your supposed friend, the Emir of the Lebanon.'

'Fakredeen?'

'You have said it.'

'The assassin and the foe of Eva!' exclaimed Tancred, with a
countenance relieved yet infinitely perplexed. 'There must be some great
misconception in all this. Let us hasten to the castle.'

'He solicited the office,' said Astarte; 'he wreaked his vengeance,
while he vindicated my outraged feelings.'

'By murdering his dearest friend, the only being to whom he is really
devoted, his more than friend, his foster-sister, nursed by the same
heart; the ally and inspiration of his life, to whom he himself was a
suitor, and might have been a successful one, had it not been for the
custom of her religion and her race, which shrink from any connection
with strangers and with Nazarenes.'

'His foster-sister!' exclaimed Astarte.

At this moment Cypros appeared in the distance, hastening to Astarte
with an agitated air. Her looks were disturbed; she was almost
breathless when she reached them; she wrung her hands before she spoke.

'Royal lady!' at length she said, 'I hastened, as you instructed me,
at the appointed hour, to the Emir Fakredeen, but I learnt that he had
quitted the castle.

Then I repaired to the prisoner; but, woe is me! she is not to be
found.'

'Not to be found!'

'The raiment that she wore is lying on the floor of her prison. Methinks
she has fled.'

'She has fled with him who was false to us all,' said Astarte, 'for it
was the Emir of the Lebanon who long ago told me that you were affianced
to the daughter of Besso, and who warned me against joining in any
enterprise which was only to place upon the throne of Syria one whom the
laws of your own country would never recognise as your wife.'

'Intriguer!' said Tancred. 'Vile and inveterate intriguer!'

'It is well,' said Astarte. 'My spirit is more serene.'

'Would that Eva were with any one else!' said Tancred, thoughtfully, and
speaking, as it were, to himself.

'Your thoughts are with the daughter of Besso,' said Astarte. 'You wish
to follow her, to guard her,