‘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!’