_A Pilgrim to Mount Sinai_
IT WAS not so much a conviction as a suspicion that Tancred had conveyed
to the young Emir, when the pilgrim had confessed that the depressing
thought sometimes came over him, that he was deficient in that
qualification of race which was necessary for the high communion to
which he aspired. Four-and-twenty hours before he was not thus dejected.
Almost within sight of Sinai, he was still full of faith. But his
vexatious captivity, and the enfeebling consequences of this wound,
dulled his spirit. Alone, among strangers and foes, in pain and in
peril, and without that energy which finds excitement in difficulty,
and can mock at danger, which requires no counsellor but our own quick
brain, and no champion but our own right arm, the high spirit of Tancred
for the first time flagged. As the twilight descended over the rocky
city, its sculptured tombs and excavated temples, and its strewn remains
of palaces and theatres, his heart recurred with tenderness to the halls
and towers of Montacute and Bellamont, and the beautiful affections
beneath those stately roofs, that, urged on, as he had once thought,
by a divine influence, now, as he was half tempted to credit, by a
fantastic impulse, he had dared to desert. Brooding in dejection, his
eyes were suffused with tears.
It was one of those moments of amiable weakness which make us all akin,
when sublime ambition, the mystical predispositions of genius, the
solemn sense of duty, all the heaped-up lore of ages, and the dogmas of
a high philosophy alike desert us, or sink into nothingness. The voice
of his mother sounded in his ear, and he was haunted by his father’s
anxious glance. Why was he there? Why was he, the child of a northern
isle, in the heart of the Stony Arabia, far from the scene of his birth
and of his duties? A disheartening, an awful question, which, if it
could not be satisfactorily answered by Tancred of Montacute, it seemed
to him that his future, wherever or however passed, must be one of
intolerable bale.
Was he, then, a stranger there? uncalled, unexpected, intrusive,
unwelcome? Was it a morbid curiosity, or the proverbial restlessness of
a satiated aristocrat, that had drawn him to these wilds? What wilds?
Had he no connection with them? Had he not from his infancy repeated, in
the congregation of his people, the laws which, from the awful summit of
these surrounding mountains, the Father of all had Himself delivered for
the government of mankind? These Arabian laws regulated his life.
And the wanderings of an Arabian tribe in this ‘great and terrible
wilderness,’ under the immediate direction of the Creator, sanctified by
His miracles, governed by His counsels, illumined by His presence, had
been the first and guiding history that had been entrusted to his young
intelligence, from which it had drawn its first pregnant examples
of human conduct and divine interposition, and formed its first dim
conceptions of the relations between man and God. Why, then, he had a
right to be here! He had a connection with these regions; they had a
hold upon him. He was not here like an Indian Brahmin, who visits Europe
from a principle of curiosity, however rational or however refined. The
land which the Hindoo visits is not his land, nor his father’s land; the
laws which regulate it are not his laws, and the faith which fills its
temples is not the revelation that floats upon his sacred Ganges. But
for this English youth, words had been uttered and things done, more
than thirty centuries ago, in this stony wilderness, which influenced
his opinions and regulated his conduct every day of his life, in that
distant and seagirt home, which, at the time of their occurrence, was
not as advanced in civilisation as the Polynesian groups or the islands
of New Zealand. The life and property of England are protected by the
laws of Sinai. The hard-working people of England are secured in every
seven days a day of rest by the laws of Sinai. And yet they persecute
the Jews, and hold up to odium the race to whom they are indebted for
the sublime legislation which alleviates the inevitable lot of the
labouring multitude!
And when that labouring multitude cease for a while from a toil which
equals almost Egyptian bondage, and demands that exponent of the
mysteries of the heart, that soother of the troubled spirit, which
poetry can alone afford, to whose harp do the people of England fly for
sympathy and solace? Who is the most popular poet in this country? Is
he to be found among the Mr. Wordsworths and the Lord Byrons, amid
sauntering reveries or monologues of sublime satiety? Shall we seek him
among the wits of Queen Anne? Even to the myriad-minded Shakespeare can
we award the palm? No; the most popular poet in England is the sweet
singer of Israel. Since the days of the heritage, when every man dwelt
safely under his vine and under his fig tree, there never was a race who
sang so often the odes of David as the people of Great Britain.
Vast as the obligations of the whole human family are to the Hebrew
race, there is no portion of the modern population so much indebted to
them as the British people. It was ‘the sword of the Lord and of Gideon’
that won the boasted liberties of England; chanting the same canticles
that cheered the heart of Judah amid their glens, the Scotch, upon their
hillsides, achieved their religious freedom.
Then why do these Saxon and Celtic societies persecute an Arabian race,
from whom they have adopted laws of sublime benevolence, and in
the pages of whose literature they have found perpetual delight,
instruction, and consolation? That is a great question, which, in
an enlightened age, may be fairly asked, but to which even the
self-complacent nineteenth century would find some difficulty in
contributing a reply. Does it stand thus? Independently of their
admirable laws which have elevated our condition, and of their exquisite
poetry which has charmed it; independently of their heroic history which
has animated us to the pursuit of public liberty, we are indebted to the
Hebrew people for our knowledge of the true God and for the redemption
from our sins.
‘Then I have a right to be here,’ said Tancred of Montacute, as his eyes
were fixed in abstraction on the stars of Arabia; ‘I am not a travelling
dilettante, mourning over a ruin, or in ecstasies at a deciphered
inscription. I come to the land whose laws I obey, whose religion I
profess, and I seek, upon its sacred soil, those sanctions which for
ages were abundantly accorded. The angels who visited the Patriarchs,
and announced the advent of the Judges, who guided the pens of Prophets
and bore tidings to the Apostles, spoke also to the Shepherds in the
field. I look upon the host of heaven; do they no longer stand before
the Lord? Where are the Cherubim, where the Seraphs? Where is Michael
the Destroyer? Gabriel of a thousand missions?’
At this moment, the sound of horsemen recalled Tancred from his reverie,
and, looking up, he observed a group of Arabs approaching him, three
of whom were mounted. Soon he recognised the great Sheikh Amalek, and
Hassan, the late commander of his escort. The young Syrian Emir was
their companion. This was a visit of hospitable ceremony from the great
Sheikh to his distinguished prisoner. Amalek, pressing his hand to his
heart, gave Tancred the salute of peace, and then, followed by Hassan,
who had lost nothing of his calm self-respect, but who conducted himself
as if he were still free, the great Sheikh seated himself on the
carpet that was spread before the tent, and took the pipe, which
was immediately offered him by Freeman and Trueman, following the
instructions of an attendant of the Emir Fakredeen.
After the usual compliments and some customary observations about horses
and pistols, Fakredeen, who had seated himself close to Tancred, with a
kind of shrinking cajolery, as if he were seeking the protection of some
superior being, addressing Amalek in a tone of easy assurance, which
remarkably contrasted with the sentimental deference he displayed
towards his prisoner, said:
‘Sheikh of Sheikhs, there is but one God: now is it Allah, or Jehovah?’
‘The palm tree is sometimes called a date tree,’ replied Amalek, ‘but
there is only one tree.’
‘Good,’ said Fakredeen, ‘but you do not pray to Allah?’
‘I pray as my fathers prayed,’ said Amalek.
‘And you pray to Jehovah?’
‘It is said.’
‘Sheikh Hassan,’ said the Emir, ‘there is but one God, and his name is
Jehovah. Why do you not pray to Jehovah?’
‘Truly there is but one God,’ said Sheikh Hassan, ‘and Mahomet is his
Prophet. He told my fathers to pray to Allah, and to Allah I pray.’
‘Is Mahomet the prophet of God, Sheikh of Sheikhs?’
‘It may be,’ replied Amalek, with a nod of assent.
‘Then why do you not pray as Sheikh Hassan?’
‘Because Moses, without doubt the prophet of God,--for all believe in
him, Sheikh Hassan, and Emir Fakredeen, and you too, Prince, brother of
queens,--married into our family and taught us to pray to Jehovah. There
may be other prophets, but the children of Jethro would indeed ride on
asses were they not content with Moses.’
‘And you have his five books?’ inquired Tancred.
‘We had them from the beginning, and we shall keep them to the end.’
‘And you learnt in them that Moses married the daughter of Jethro?’
‘Did I learn in them that I have wells and camels? We want no books to
tell us who married our daughters.’
‘And yet it is not yesterday that Moses fled from Egypt into Midian?’
‘It is not yesterday for those who live in cities, where they say at
one gate that it is morning, and at another it is night. Where men tell
lies, the deed of the dawn is the secret of sunset. But in the desert
nothing changes; neither the acts of a man’s life, nor the words of a
man’s lips. We drink at the same well where Moses helped Zipporah,
we tend the same flocks, we live under the same tents; our words have
changed as little as our waters, our habits, or our dwellings. What my
father learnt from those before him, he delivered to me, and I have told
it to my son. What is time and what is truth, that I should forget that
a prophet of Jehovah married into my house?’
‘Where little is done, little is said,’ observed Sheikh Hassan, ‘and
silence is the mother of truth.
Since the Hegira, nothing has happened in Arabia, and before that was
Moses, and before him the giants.’
‘Let truth always be spoken,’ said Amalek; ‘your words are a flowing
stream, and the children of Rechab and the tribes of the Senites never
joined him of Mecca, for they had the five books, and they said, “Is
not that enough?” They withdrew to the Syrian wilderness, and they
multiplied. But the sons of Koreidha, who also had the five books,
but who were not children of Rechab, but who came into the desert near
Medina after Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed El Khuds, they first joined
him of Mecca, and then they made war on him, and he broke their bows and
led them into captivity; and they are to be found in the cities of Yemen
to this day; the children of Israel who live in the cities of Yemen are
the tribe of Koreidha.’
‘Unhappy sons of Koreidha, who made war upon the Prophet, and who live
in cities!’ said Sheikh Hassan, taking a fresh pipe.
‘And perhaps,’ said the young Emir, ‘if you had not been children of
Jethro, you might have acknowledged him of Mecca, Sheikh of Sheikhs.’
‘There is but one God,’ said Amalek; ‘but there may be many prophets. It
becomes not a son of jethro to seek other than Moses. But I will not say
that the Koran comes not from God, since it was written by one who
was of the tribe of Koreish, and the tribe of Koreish are the lineal
descendants of Ibrahim.’
‘And you believe that the Word of God could come only to the seed of
Abraham?’ asked Tancred, eagerly.
‘I and my fathers have watered our flocks in the wilderness since time
was,’ replied Amalek; ‘we have seen the Pharaohs, and Nebuchadnezzar,
and Iskander, and the Romans, and the Sultan of the French: they
conquered everything except us; and where are they? They are sand. Let
men doubt of unicorns: but of one thing there can be no doubt, that God
never spoke except to an Arab.’
Tancred covered his face with his hands. Then, after a few moments’
pause, looking up, he said, ‘Sheikh of Sheikhs, I am your prisoner; and
was, when you captured me, a pilgrim to Mount Sinai, a spot which, in
your belief, is not less sacred than in mine. We are, as I have learned,
only two days’ journey from that holy place. Grant me this boon, that I
may at once proceed thither, guarded as you will. I pledge you the word
of a Christian noble, that I will not attempt to escape. Long before
you have received a reply from Jerusalem, I shall have returned; and
whatever may be the result of the visit of Baroni, I shall, at least,
have fulfilled my pilgrimage.’
‘Prince, brother of queens,’ replied Amalek, with that politeness which
is the characteristic of the Arabian chieftains; ‘under my tents you
have only to command; go where you like, return when you please. My
children shall attend you as your guardians, not as your guards.’ And
the great Sheikh rose and retired.
Tancred re-entered his tent, and, reclining, fell into a reverie of
distracting thoughts. The history of his life and mind seemed with a
whirling power to pass before him; his birth, in clime unknown to the
Patriarchs; his education, unconsciously to himself, in an Arabian
literature; his imbibing, from his tender infancy, oriental ideas and
oriental creeds; the contrast that the occidental society in which he
had been reared presented to them; his dissatisfaction with that social
system; his conviction of the growing melancholy of enlightened Europe,
veiled, as it may be, with sometimes a conceited bustle, sometimes a
desperate shipwreck gaiety, sometimes with all the exciting empiricism
of science; his perplexity that, between the Asian revelation and the
European practice there should be so little conformity, and why the
relations between them should be so limited and imperfect; above all,
his passionate desire to penetrate the mystery of the elder world, and
share its celestial privileges and divine prerogative. Tancred sighed.
He looked round; some one had gently drawn his hand. It was the young
Emir kneeling, his beautiful blue eyes bedewed with tears.
‘You are unhappy, said Fakredeen, in a tone of plaintiveness.
‘It is the doom of man,’ replied Tancred; ‘and in my position sadness
should not seem strange.’
‘The curse of ten thousand mothers on those who made you a prisoner; the
curse of twenty thousand mothers on him who inflicted on you a wound!’
‘’Tis the fortune of life,’ said Tancred, more cheerfully; ‘and in truth
I was perhaps thinking of other things.’
‘Do you know why I trouble you when your heart is dark?’ said the young
Emir. ‘See now, if you will it, you are free. The great Sheikh has
consented that you should go to Sinai. I have two dromedaries here,
fleeter than the Kamsin. At the well of Mokatteb, where we encamp for
the night, I will serve raki to the Bedouins; I have some with me,
strong enough to melt the snow of Lebanon; if it will not do, they shall
smoke some timbak, that will make them sleep like pashas. I know this
desert as a man knows his father’s house; we shall be at Hebron before
they untie their eyelids. Tell me, is it good?’
‘Were I alone,’ said Tancred, ‘without a single guard, I must return.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I have pledged the word of a Christian noble.’
‘To a man who does not believe in Christ. Faugh! Is it not itself a sin
to keep faith with heretics?’
‘But is he one?’ said Tancred. ‘He believes in Moses; he disbelieves in
none of the seed of Abraham. He is of that seed himself! Would I were
such a heretic as Sheikh Amalek!’
‘If you will only pay me a visit in the Lebanon, I would introduce you
to our patriarch, and he would talk as much theology with you as you
like. For my own part it is not a kind of knowledge that I have much
cultivated; you know I am peculiarly situated, we have so many religions
on the mountain; but time presses; tell me, my prince, shall Hebron be
our point?’
‘If Amalek believed in Baal, I must return,’ said Tancred; ‘even if it
were to certain death. Besides, I could not desert my men; and Baroni,
what would become of him?’
‘We could easily make some plan that would extricate them. Dismiss them
from your mind, and trust yourself to me. I know nothing that would
delight me more than to baulk these robbers of their prey.’
‘I should not talk of such things,’ said Tancred; ‘I must remain here,
or I must return.’
‘What can you want to do on Mount Sinai?’ murmured the prince rather
pettishly. ‘Now if it were Mount Lebanon, and you had a wish to employ
yourself, there is an immense field! We might improve the condition
of the people; we might establish manufactures, stimulate agriculture
extend commerce get an appalto of the silk, buy it all up at sixty
piastres per oke, and sell it at Marseilles at two hundred and at the
same time advance the interests of true religion as much as you please.’