‘My heart responds to it,’ said Tancred. ‘What is Damascus, with all its sumptuousness, to this sweet liberty?’
Quitting the banks of the river, they directed their course to the south, and struck as it were into the heart of the desert; yet, on the morrow, the winding waters again met them. And now there opened on their sight a wondrous scene: as far as the eye could reach innumerable tents; strings of many hundred camels going to, or returning from, the waters; groups of horses picketed about; processions of women with vases on their heads visiting the palmy banks; swarms of children and dogs; spreading flocks; and occasionally an armed horseman bounding about the environs of the vast encampment.
Although scarcely a man was visible when Tancred first caught a glimpse of this Arabian settlement, a band of horsemen suddenly sprang from behind a rising ground and came galloping up to them to reconnoitre and to inquire.
‘We are brothers,’ said Baroni, ‘for who should be the master of so many camels but the lord of the Syrian pastures?’
‘There is but one God,’ said the Bedouin, ‘and none are lords of the Syrian pastures but the children of Rechab.’
‘Truly, there is only one God,’ said Baroni; ‘go tell the great Sheikh that his friend the English prince has come here to give him a salaam of peace.’
Away bounded back the Bedouins, and were soon lost in the crowded distance.
‘All is right,’ said Baroni; ‘we shall sup to-night under the pavilion of Amalek.’
‘I visit him then, at length, in his beautiful pastures,’ said Tancred; ‘but, alas! I visit him alone.’
They had pulled up their horses, and were proceeding leisurely towards the encampment, when they observed a cavalcade emerging from the outer boundary of the settlement. This was Amalek himself, on one of his steeds of race, accompanied by several of his leading Sheikhs, coming to welcome Tancred to his pavilion in the Syrian pastures. A joyful satisfaction sparkled in the bright eyes of the old chieftain, as, at a little distance, he waved his hand with graceful dignity, and then pressed it to his heart.