‘I had a dream when you were away, in which I was much alarmed,’ said Astarte. ‘Indeed!’
‘I thought that Gindarics was taken by the Jews. I suppose you have talked of them to me so much that my slumbering memory wandered.’
‘It is a resistless and exhaustless theme,’ said Tancred; ‘for the greatness and happiness of everything, Gindarics included, are comprised in the principles of which they were the first propagators.’
‘Nevertheless, I should be sorry if my dream came to be true,’ said Astarte.
‘May your dreams be as bright and happy as your lot, royal lady!’ said Tancred.
‘My lot is not bright and happy,’ said the Queen; ‘once I thought it was, but I think so no longer.’
‘But why?’
‘I wish you could have a dream and find out,’ said the Queen. ‘Disquietude is sometimes as perplexing as pleasure. Both come and go like birds.’
‘Like the pigeon you sent to Damascus,’ said Tancred.
‘Ah! why did I send it?’