‘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, when I was my own master, to make them a visit. But, I know not how it is, there are some prejudices that do stick to one. I have a prejudice against the Ansarey, a sort of fear, a kind of horror. ‘Tis vastly absurd. I suppose my nurse instilled it into me, and frightened me with them when I would not sleep. Besides, I had an idea that they particularly hated the Shehaabs. I recollect so well the Emir Bescheer, at Bteddeen, bestowing endless imprecations on them.’
‘He made many efforts to win them, though,’ said Sheikh Hamood, ‘and so did the Emir Yousef.’
‘And you think without them, noble Sheikh,’ said Tancred, ‘that Syria is not secure?’
‘I think, with them and peace with the desert, that Syria might defy Turk and Egyptian.’
‘And carry the war into the enemy’s quarters, if necessary?’ said Fakredeen.