‘Who is this?’ exclaimed the Consul Pasqualigo.
A couple of horsemen, well mounted, but travel-worn, and followed by a guard of Bedouins, were coming up the Via Dolorosa, and stopped at the house of Hassan Nejid.
‘’Tis the English prince,’ said Barizy of the Tower. ‘He has been absent six months; he has been in Egypt.’
‘To see the temples of the fire-worshippers, and to shoot crocodiles. They all do that,’ said the Consul Pasqualigo.
‘How glad he must be to get back to Jerusalem,’ said Barizy of the Tower. ‘There may be larger cities, but there are certainly none so beautiful.’
‘The most beautiful city in the world is the city of Venice,’ said Pasqualigo.
‘You have never been there,’ said Barizy.
‘But it was built principally by my ancestors,’ said the Consul, ‘and I have a print of it in my hall.’
‘I never heard that Venice was comparable to Jerusalem,’ said Barizy.
‘Jerusalem is, in every respect, an abode fit for swine, compared with Venice,’ said Pasqualigo.