_Fakredeen and the Rose of Sharon_
BEFORE Tancred could recover from his surprise, the kiosk was invaded
by a crowd of little grinning negro pages, dressed in white tunics, with
red caps and slippers. They bore a number of diminutive trays of ebony
inlaid with tortoiseshell, and the mother-o’-pearl of Joppa, and covered
with a great variety of dishes. It was in vain that he would have
signified to them that he had no wish to partake of the banquet, and
that he attempted to rise from his mat. They understood nothing that he
said, but always grinning and moving about him with wonderful quickness,
they fastened a napkin of the finest linen, fringed with gold, round his
neck, covered the mats and the border of the fountain with their
dishes and vases of differently-coloured sherbets, and proceeded,
notwithstanding all his attempts at refusal, to hand him their dainties
in due order. Notwithstanding his present tone of mind, which was
ill-adapted to any carnal gratification, Tancred had nevertheless been
an unusual number of hours without food. He had made during the period
no inconsiderable exertion, and was still some distance from the
city. Though he resigned himself perforce to the care of his little
attendants, their solicitude therefore was not inappropriate. He
partook of some of their dishes, and when he had at length succeeded
in conveying to them his resolution to taste no more, they cleared the
kiosk with as marvellous a celerity as they had stored it, and then two
of them advanced with a nargileh and a chibouque, to offer their choice
to their guest. Tan-cred placed the latter for a moment to his mouth,
and then rising, and making signs to the pages that he would now return,
they danced before him in the path till he had reached the other side
of the area of roses, and then, with a hundred bows, bending, they took
their leave of him.
The sun had just sunk as Tancred quitted the garden: a crimson glow,
shifting, as he proceeded, into rich tints of purple and of gold,
suffused the stern Judæan hills, and lent an almost supernatural lustre
to the landscape; lighting up the wild gorges, gilding the distant
glens, and still kindling the superior elevations with its living blaze.
The air, yet fervid, was freshened by a slight breeze that came over the
wilderness from the Jordan, and the big round stars that were already
floating in the skies were the brilliant heralds of the splendour of
a Syrian night. The beauteous hour and the sacred scene were alike in
unison with the heart of Tancred, softened and serious. He mused in
fascinated reverie over the dazzling incident of the day. Who was this
lady of Bethany, who seemed not unworthy to have followed Him who had
made her abiding place so memorable? Her beauty might have baffled the
most ideal painter of the fair Hebrew saints. Raffaelle himself could
not have designed a brow of more delicate supremacy. Her lofty but
gracious bearing, the vigour of her clear, frank mind, her earnestness,
free from all ecstasy and flimsy enthusiasm, but founded in knowledge
and deep thought, and ever sustained by exact expression and ready
argument, her sweet witty voice, the great and all-engaging theme on
which she was so content to discourse, and which seemed by right to
belong to her: all these were circumstances which wonderfully affected
the imagination of Tancred.
He was lost in the empyrean of high abstraction, his gaze apparently
fixed on the purple mountains, and the golden skies, and the glittering
orbs of coming night, which yet in truth he never saw, when a repeated
shout at length roused him. It bade him stand aside on the narrow path
that winds round the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem to Bethany, and let
a coming horseman pass. The horseman was the young Emir who was a guest
the night before in the divan of Besso. Though habited in the Mamlouk
dress, as if only the attendant of some great man, huge trousers and
jacket of crimson cloth, a white turban, a shawl round his waist holding
his pistols and sabre, the horse he rode was a Kochlani of the highest
breed., By him was a running footman, holding his nargileh, to which
the Emir frequently applied his mouth as he rode along. He shot a keen
glance at Tancred as he passed by, and then throwing his tube to his
attendant, he bounded on.
In the meantime, we must not forget the lady of Bethany after she so
suddenly disappeared from the kiosk. Proceeding up her mountain garden,
which narrowed as she advanced, and attended by two female slaves, who
had been in waiting without the kiosk, she was soon in that hilly chink
in which she had built her nest; a long, low pavilion, with a shelving
roof, and surrounded by a Saracenic arcade; the whole painted in fresco;
a golden pattern of flowing fancy on a white ground. If there were door
or window, they were entirely concealed by the blinds which appeared to
cover the whole surface of the building. Stepping into the arcade, the
lady entered the pavilion by a side portal, which opened by a secret
spring, and which conducted her into a small corridor, and this again
through two chambers, in both of which were many females, who mutely
saluted her without rising from their employments.
Then the mistress entered a more capacious and ornate apartment.
Its ceiling, which described the horseshoe arch of the Saracens, was
encrusted with that honeycomb work which is peculiar to them, and which,
in the present instance, was of rose colour and silver. Mirrors were
inserted in the cedar panels of the walls; a divan of rose-coloured silk
surrounded the chamber, and on the thick soft carpet of many colours,
which nearly covered the floor, were several cushions surrounding an
antique marble tripod of wreathed serpents. The lady, disembarrassing
herself of her slippers, seated herself on the divan in the fashion of
her country; one of her attendants brought a large silver lamp, which
diffused a delicious odour as well as a brilliant light, and placed
it on the tripod; the other clapped her hands, and a band of beautiful
girls entered the room, bearing dishes of confectionery, plates of
choice fruits, and vases of delicious sherbets. The lady, partaking of
some of these, directed, after a short time, that they should be offered
to her immediate attendants, who thereupon kissed their hands with a
grave face, and pressed them to their hearts. Then one of the girls,
leaving the apartment for a moment, returned with a nargileh of crystal,
set by the most cunning artists of Damascus in a framework of golden
filigree crusted with precious stones. She presented the flexible silver
tube, tipped with amber, to the lady, who, waving her hand that the room
should be cleared, smoked a confection of roses and rare nuts, while she
listened to a volume read by one of her maidens, who was seated by the
silver lamp.
While they were thus employed, an opposite curtain to that by which they
had entered was drawn aside, and a woman advanced, and whispered some
words to the lady, who seemed to signify her assent. Immediately, a tall
negro of Dongola, richly habited in a flowing crimson vest, and with
a large silver collar round his neck, entered the hall, and, after the
usual salutations of reverence to the lady, spoke earnestly in a low
voice. The lady listened with great attention, and then, taking out her
tablets from her girdle, she wrote a few words and gave a leaf to the
tall negro, who bowed and retired. Then she waved her hand, and the
maiden who was reading closed her book, rose, and, pressing her hand to
her heart, retired.
It seemed that the young Emir had arrived at the pavilion, and prayed
that, without a moment’s delay, he might speak with the Lady of Bethany.
The curtain was again withdrawn, a light step was heard, the young man
who had recently passed Tancred on the road to Jerusalem bounded into
the room.
‘How is the Rose of Sharon?’ he exclaimed. He threw himself at her feet,
and pressed the hem of her garment to his lips with an ecstasy which
it would have been difficult for a bystander to decide whether it were
mockery or enthusiasm, or genuine feeling, which took a sportive air to
veil a devotion which it could not conceal, and which it cared not too
gravely to intimate.
‘Ah, Fakredeen!’ said the lady, ‘and when did you leave the Mountain?’
‘I arrived at Jerusalem yesterday by sunset; never did I want to see you
so much. The foreign consuls have stopped my civil war, which cost me a
hundred thousand piastres. We went down to Beiroot and signed articles
of peace; I thought it best to attend to escape suspicion. However,
there is more stirring than you can conceive: never had I such
combinations! First, let me shortly tell you what I have done, then what
I wish you to do. I have made immense hits, but I am also in a scrape.’
‘That I think you always are,’ said the lady.
‘But you will get me out of it, Rose of Sharon! You always do, brightest
and sweetest of friends! What an alliance is ours! My invention, your
judgment; my combinations, your criticism. It must carry everything
before it.’
‘I do not see that it has effected much hitherto,’ said the lady.’
However, give me your mountain news. What have you done?’
‘In the first place,’ said Fakredeen, ‘until this accursed peace
intrigue of the foreign consuls, which will not last as long as the
carnival, the Mountain was more troubled than ever, and the Porte,
backed up by Sir Canning, is obstinate against any prince of our house
exercising the rule.’
‘Do you call that good news?’
‘It serves. In the first place it keeps my good uncle, the Emir Bescheer
and his sons, prisoners at the Seven Towers. Now, I will tell you what I
have done. I have sent to my uncle and offered him two hundred thousand
piastres a year for his life and that of his sons, if they will
represent to the Porte that none but a prince of the house of Shehaab
can possibly pacify and administer Lebanon, and that, to obtain this
necessary end, they are ready to resign their rights in favour of any
other member of the family.’
‘What then?’ said the Lady of Bethany, taking her nargileh from her
mouth.
‘Why, then,’ said Fakredeen, ‘I am by another agent working upon Riza
Pasha to this effect, that of all the princes of the great house of
Shehaab, there is none so well adapted to support the interests of the
Porte as the Emir Fakredeen, and for these three principal reasons: in
the first place, because he is a prince of great qualities----’
‘Your proof of them to the vizir would be better than your assertion.’
‘Exactly,’ said Fakredeen. ‘I prove them by my second reason, which is a
guaranty to his excellency of the whole revenue of the first year of my
princedom, provided I receive the berat.’
‘I can tell you something,’ said the lady, ‘Riza shakes a little. He is
too fond of first-fruits. His nomination will not be popular.’
‘Yes it will, when the divan takes into consideration the third reason
for my appointment,’ said the prince. ‘Namely, that the Emir Fakredeen
is the only prince of the great house of Shehaab who is a good
Mussulman.’
‘You a good Mussulman! Why, I thought you had sent two months ago
Archbishop Murad to Paris, urging King Louis to support you, because,
amongst other reasons, being a Christian prince, you would defend the
faith and privileges of the Maronites.’
‘And devote myself to France,’ said Fakredeen. ‘It is very true, and an
excellent combination it is, if we could only bring it to bear, which I
do not despair of, though affairs, which looked promising at Paris, have
taken an unfortunate turn of late.’
‘I am sorry for that,’ said the lady, ‘for really, Fakredeen, of all
your innumerable combinations, that did seem to me to be the most
practical. I think it might have been worked. The Maronites are
powerful; the French nation is interested in them; they are the link
between France and Syria; and you, being a Christian prince as well as
an emir of the most illustrious house, with your intelligence and such
aid as we might give you, I think your prospects were, to say the least,
fair.’
‘Why, as to being a Christian prince, Eva, you must remember I aspire to
a dominion where I have to govern the Maronites who are Christians,
the Metoualis who are Mahometans, the Ansareys who are Pagans, and the
Druses who are nothing. As for-myself, my house, as you well know, is
more ancient even than that of Othman. We are literally descended from
the standard-bearer of the Prophet, and my own estates, as well as those
of the Emir Bes-cheer, have been in our registered possession for nearly
eight hundred years. Our ancestors became Christians to conciliate the
Maronites. Now tell me: in Europe, an English or French prince who wants
a throne never hesitates to change his religion, why should I be more
nice? I am of that religion which gives me a sceptre; and if a Frank
prince adopts a new creed when he quits London or Paris, I cannot
understand why mine may not change according to the part of the mountain
through which I am passing. What is the use of belonging to an old
family unless to have the authority of an ancestor ready for any
prejudice, religious or political, which your combinations may require?’
‘Ah! Fakredeen,’ said the lady, shaking her head, ‘you have no
self-respect.’
‘No Syrian has; it won’t do for us. You are an Arabian; it will do for
the desert. Self-respect, too, is a superstition of past centuries, an
affair of the Crusades. It is not suited to these times; it is much
too arrogant, too self-conceited, too egotistical. No one is important
enough to have self-respect. Don’t you see?’
‘You boast of being a prince inferior to none in the antiquity of your
lineage, and, as far as the mere fact is concerned, you are justified
in your boast. I cannot comprehend how one who feels this pride should
deign to do anything that is not princely.’
‘A prince!’ exclaimed Fakredeen. ‘Princes go for nothing now, without
a loan. Get me a loan, and then you turn the prince into a government.
That’s the thing.’
‘You will never get a loan till you are Emir of Lebanon,’ said the lady.
‘And you have shown me to-day that the only chance you have is failing
you, for, after all, Paris was your hope. What has crossed you?’
‘In the first place,’ said Fakredeen, ‘what can the French do? After
having let the Egyptians be driven out, fortunately for me, for their
expulsion ruined my uncle, the French will never take the initiative in
Syria. All that I wanted of them was, that they should not oppose Riza
Pasha in his nomination of me. But to secure his success a finer move
was necessary. So I instructed Archbishop Murad, whom they received very
well at Paris, to open secret communications over the water with the
English. He did so, and offered to cross and explain in detail to their
ministers. I wished to assure them in London that I was devoted to
their interests; and I meant to offer to let the Protestant missionaries
establish themselves in the mountain, so that Sir Canning should have
received instructions to support my nomination by Riza. Then you see,
I should have had the Porte, England, and France. The game was won. Can
you believe it? Lord Aberdeen enclosed my agent’s letter to Guizot. I
was crushed.’
‘And disgraced. You deserved it. You never will succeed. Intrigue will
be your ruin, Fakredeen.’
‘Intrigue!’ exclaimed the prince, starting from the cushion near the
tripod, on which he sat, speaking with great animation and using, as
was his custom, a superfluity of expression, both of voice and hands
and eyes, ‘intrigue! It is life! It is the only thing! How do you think
Guizot and Aberdeen got to be ministers without intrigue? Or Riza Pasha
himself? How do you think Mehemet Ali got on? Do you believe Sir Canning
never intrigues? He would be recalled in a week if he did not. Why, I
have got one of his spies in my castle at this moment, and I make
him write home for the English all that I wish them not to believe.
Intrigue! Why, England won India by intrigue. Do you think they are not
intriguing in the Punjaub at this moment? Intrigue has gained half the
thrones of Europe: Greece, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Russia. If
you wish to produce a result, you must make combinations; and you call
combinations, Eva, intrigue!’
‘And this is the scrape that you are in,’ said the lady. ‘I do not see
how I can help you out of it.’
‘Pardon; this is not the scrape: and here comes the point on which I
need your aid, daughter of a thousand sheikhs! I can extricate myself
from the Paris disaster, even turn it to account. I have made an
alliance with the patriarch of the Lebanon, who manages affairs for the
Emir Bescheer. The patriarch hates Murad, whom you see I was to have
made patriarch. I am to declare the Archbishop an unauthorised agent,
an adventurer, and my letter to be a forgery. The patriarch is to go
to Stamboul, with his long white beard, and put me right with France,
through De Bourqueney, with whom he has relations in favour of the Emir
Bescheer; my uncle is to be thrown over; all the Maronite chiefs are
to sign a declaration supplicating the Porte to institute me; nay, the
declaration is signed----’
‘And the Druses? Will not this Maronite manifestation put you wrong with
the Druses?’
‘I live among the Druses, you see,’ said Fakredeen, shaking his head,
and looking with his glittering eye a thousand meanings. ‘The Druses
love me. They know that I am one of themselves. They will only think
that I have made the Maronites eat sand.’
‘And what have you really done for the Maronites to gain all this?’
asked the lady, quietly.
‘There it is,’ said Fakredeen, speaking in an affected whisper, ‘the
greatest stroke of state that ever entered the mind of a king without
a kingdom, for I am resolved that the mountain shall be a royalty I You
remember when Ibrahim Pasha laid his plans for disarming the Lebanon,
the Maronites, urged by their priests, fell into the snare, while the
Druses wisely went with their muskets and scimitars, and lived awhile
with the eagle and the antelope. This has been sand to the Maronites
ever since. The Druses put their tongues in their cheek whenever they
meet, and treat them as so many women. The Porte, of course, will do
nothing for the Maronites; they even take back the muskets which they
lent them for the insurrection. Well, as the Porte will not arm them, I
have agreed to do it.’
‘You!’
‘’Tis done; at least the caravan is laden; we only want a guide.
And this is why I am at Jerusalem. Scheriff Effendi, who met me here
yesterday, has got me five thousand English muskets, and I have arranged
with the Bedouin of Zoalia to carry them to the mountain.’
‘You have indeed Solomon’s signet, my dear Fakredeen.’
‘Would that I had; for then I could pay two hundred thousand piastres
to that Egyptian camel, Scheriff Effendi, and he would give me up my
muskets, which now, like a true son of Eblis, he obstinately retains.’
‘And this is your scrape, Fakredeen. And how much have you towards the
sum?’
‘Not a piastre; nor do I suppose I shall ever see, until I make a great
financial stroke, so much of the sultan’s gold as is on one of the gilt
balls of roses in your nargileh. My crops are sold for next year, my
jewels are gone, my studs are to be broken up. There is not a cur in the
streets of Beiroot of whom I have not borrowed money. Riza Pasha is a
sponge that would dry the sea of Galilee.’
‘It is a great thing to have gained the Patriarch of Lebanon,’ said
the lady; ‘I always felt that, as long as that man was against you, the
Maronites never could be depended on. And yet these arms; after all,
they are of no use, for you would not think of insurrection!’
‘No; but they can quarrel with the Druses, and cut each other’s throats,
and this will make the mountain more unmanageable than ever, and the
English will have no customers for their calicoes, don’t you see? Lord
Palmerston will arraign the minister in the council. I shall pay off
Aberdeen for enclosing the Archbishop’s letter to Guizot. Combination
upon combination! The calico merchants will call out for a prince of the
house of Shehaab! Riza will propose me; Bourqueney will not murmur, and
Sir Canning, finding he is in a mess, will sign a fine note of words
about the peace of Europe and the prosperity of Lebanon, and ‘tis
finished.’
‘And my father, you have seen him?’
‘I have seen him,’ said the young Emir, and he cast his eyes on the
ground.
‘He has done so much,’ said Eva.
‘Ask him to do more, Rose of Sharon,’ said Fakredeen, like a child about
to cry for a toy, and he threw himself on his knees before Eva, and kept
kissing her robe. ‘Ask him to do more,’ he repeated, in a suppressed
tone of heart-rending cajolery; ‘he can refuse you nothing. Ask him, ask
him, Eva! I have no friend in the world but you; I am so desolate.
You have always been my friend, my counsellor, my darling, my ruby, my
pearl, my rose of Rocnabad! Ask him, Eva; never mind my faults; you
know me by heart; only ask him!’
She shook her head.
‘Tell him that you are my sister, that I am his son, that I love you
so, that I love him so; tell him anything. Say that he ought to do it
because I am a Hebrew.’
‘A what?’ said Eva.
‘A Hebrew; yes, a Hebrew. I am a Hebrew by blood, and we all are by
faith.’
‘Thou son of a slave!’ exclaimed the lady, ‘thou masquerade of humanity!
Christian or Mussulman, Pagan or Druse, thou mayest figure as; but spare
my race, Fakredeen, they are fallen----’
‘But not so base as I am. It may be true, but I love you, Eva, and you
love me; and if I had as many virtues as yourself, you could not love
me more; perhaps less. Women like to feel their superiority; you are
as clever as I am, and have more judgment; you are generous, and I am
selfish; honourable, and I am a villain; brave, and I am a coward; rich,
and I am poor. Let that satisfy you, and do not trample on the fallen;’
and Fakredeen took her hand and bedewed it with his tears.
‘Dear Fakredeen,’ said Eva, ‘I thought you spoke in jest, as I did.’
‘How can a man jest, who has to go through what I endure!’ said the
young Emir, in a desponding tone, and still lying at her feet. ‘O, my
more than sister, ‘tis hell! The object I propose to myself would, with
the greatest resources, be difficult; and now I have none.’
‘Relinquish it.’
‘When I am young and ruined! When I have the two greatest stimulants in
the world to action, Youth and Debt! No; such a combination is never to
be thrown away. Any young prince ought to win the Lebanon, but a young
prince in debt ought to conquer the world!’ and the Emir sprang from the
floor, and began walking about the apartment.
‘I think, Eva,’ he said, after a moment’s pause, and speaking in his
usual tone, ‘I think you really might do something with your father; I
look upon myself as his son; he saved my life. And I am a Hebrew; I
was nourished by your mother’s breast, her being flows in my veins;
and independent of all that, my ancestor was the standard-bearer of the
Prophet, and the Prophet was the descendant of Ishmael, and Ishmael
and Israel were brothers. I really think, between my undoubted Arabian
origin and being your foster-brother, that I may be looked upon as a
Jew, and that your father might do something for me.’
‘Whatever my father will do, you and he must decide together,’ said Eva;
‘after the result of my last interference, I promised my father that I
never would speak to him on your affairs again; and you know, therefore,
that I cannot. You ought not to urge me, Fakredeen.’
‘Ah! you are angry with me,’ he exclaimed, and again seated himself
at her feet. ‘You were saying in your heart, he is the most selfish of
beings. It is true, I am. But I have glorious aspirations at least. I am
not content to live like my fathers in a beautiful palace, amid my woods
and mountains, with Kochlani steeds, falcons that would pull down an
eagle, and nargilehs of rubies and emeralds. I want something more than
troops of beautiful slaves, music and dances. I want Europe to talk of
me. I am wearied of hearing nothing but Ibrahim Pasha, Louis Philippe,
and Palmerston. I, too, can make combinations; and I am of a better
family than all three, for Ibrahim is a child of mud, a Bourbon is not
equal to a Shehaab, and Lord Palmerston only sits in the Queen’s
second chamber of council, as I well know from an Englishman who was at
Beiroot, and with whom I have formed some political relations, of which
perhaps some day you will hear.’
‘Well, we have arrived at a stage of your career, Fakredeen, in which no
combination presents itself; I am powerless to assist you; my resources,
never very great, are quite exhausted.’
‘No,’ said the Emir, ‘the game is yet to be won. Listen, Rose of Sharon,
for this is really the point on which I came to hold counsel. A young
English lord has arrived at Jerusalem this week or ten days past; he
is of the highest dignity, and rich enough to buy the grand bazaar of
Damascus; he has letters of credit on your father’s house without
any limit. No one can discover the object of his mission. I have some
suspicions; there is also a French officer here who never speaks; I
watch them both. The Englishman, I learnt this morning, is going to
Mount Sinai. It is not a pilgrimage, because the English are really
neither Jews nor Christians, but follow a sort of religion of their own,
which is made every year by their bishops, one of whom they have sent
to Jerusalem, in what they call a parliament, a college of muftis; you
understand. Now lend me that ear that is like an almond of Aleppo! I
propose that one of the tribes that obey your grandfather shall make
this Englishman prisoner as he traverses the desert. You see? Ah! Rose
of Sharon, I am not yet beat; your Fakredeen is not the baffled boy
that, a few minutes ago, you looked as if you thought him. I defy
Ibrahim, or the King of France, or Palmerston himself, to make a
combination superior to this. What a ransom! The English lord will pay
Scheriff Effendi for his five thousand muskets, and for their conveyance
to the mountain besides.’