‘And perhaps,’ said the young Emir, ‘if you had not been children of Jethro, you might have acknowledged him of Mecca, Sheikh of Sheikhs.’
‘There is but one God,’ said Amalek; ‘but there may be many prophets. It becomes not a son of jethro to seek other than Moses. But I will not say that the Koran comes not from God, since it was written by one who was of the tribe of Koreish, and the tribe of Koreish are the lineal descendants of Ibrahim.’
‘And you believe that the Word of God could come only to the seed of Abraham?’ asked Tancred, eagerly.
‘I and my fathers have watered our flocks in the wilderness since time was,’ replied Amalek; ‘we have seen the Pharaohs, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Iskander, and the Romans, and the Sultan of the French: they conquered everything except us; and where are they? They are sand. Let men doubt of unicorns: but of one thing there can be no doubt, that God never spoke except to an Arab.’
Tancred covered his face with his hands. Then, after a few moments’ pause, looking up, he said, ‘Sheikh of Sheikhs, I am your prisoner; and was, when you captured me, a pilgrim to Mount Sinai, a spot which, in your belief, is not less sacred than in mine. We are, as I have learned, only two days’ journey from that holy place. Grant me this boon, that I may at once proceed thither, guarded as you will. I pledge you the word of a Christian noble, that I will not attempt to escape. Long before you have received a reply from Jerusalem, I shall have returned; and whatever may be the result of the visit of Baroni, I shall, at least, have fulfilled my pilgrimage.’
‘Prince, brother of queens,’ replied Amalek, with that politeness which is the characteristic of the Arabian chieftains; ‘under my tents you have only to command; go where you like, return when you please. My children shall attend you as your guardians, not as your guards.’ And the great Sheikh rose and retired.
Tancred re-entered his tent, and, reclining, fell into a reverie of distracting thoughts. The history of his life and mind seemed with a whirling power to pass before him; his birth, in clime unknown to the Patriarchs; his education, unconsciously to himself, in an Arabian literature; his imbibing, from his tender infancy, oriental ideas and oriental creeds; the contrast that the occidental society in which he had been reared presented to them; his dissatisfaction with that social system; his conviction of the growing melancholy of enlightened Europe, veiled, as it may be, with sometimes a conceited bustle, sometimes a desperate shipwreck gaiety, sometimes with all the exciting empiricism of science; his perplexity that, between the Asian revelation and the European practice there should be so little conformity, and why the relations between them should be so limited and imperfect; above all, his passionate desire to penetrate the mystery of the elder world, and share its celestial privileges and divine prerogative. Tancred sighed.
He looked round; some one had gently drawn his hand. It was the young Emir kneeling, his beautiful blue eyes bedewed with tears.
‘You are unhappy, said Fakredeen, in a tone of plaintiveness.
‘It is the doom of man,’ replied Tancred; ‘and in my position sadness should not seem strange.’