Tancred - Benjamin Disraeli (little readers txt) 📗

good heart which characterises you; and as for the daughter of Besso, all will be forgotten as she gives one hand to her father and the other to her husband.'

'It is too late,' said Astarte in an almost sepulchral voice.

'What is that?'

'It is too late! The daughter of Besso is no more.'

'Jesu preserve us!' exclaimed Tancred, starting. 'Speak it again: what is it that you say?'

Astarte shook her head.

'Woman!' said Tancred, and he seized her hand, but his thoughts were too wild for utterance, and he remained pallid and panting.

'The daughter of Besso is no more; and I do not lament it, for you loved her.'

'Oh, grief ineffable!' said Tancred, with a groan, looking up to heaven, and covering his face with his hands: 'I loved her, as I loved the stars and sunshine.' Then, after a pause, he turned to Astarte, and said, in a rapid voice, 'This dreadful deed; when, how, did it happen?'

'Is it so dreadful?'

'Almost as dreadful as such words from woman's lips. A curse be on the hour that I entered these walls!'

'No, no, no!' said Astarte, and she seized his arm distractedly. 'No, no! No curse!'

'It is not true!' said Tancred. 'It cannot be true! She is not dead.'

'Would she were not, if her death is to bring me curses.'

'Tell me when was this?'

'An hour ago, at least.'

'I do not believe it. There is not an arm that would have dared to touch her. Let us hasten to her. It is not too late.'

'Alas! it is too late,' said Astarte. 'It was an enemy's arm that undertook the deed.'

'An enemy! What enemy among your people could the daughter of Besso have found?'

'A deadly one, who seized the occasion offered to a long cherished vengeance; one who for years has been alike the foe and the victim of her race and house. There is no hope!'

'I am indeed amazed. Who could this be?'

'Your friend; at least, your supposed friend, the Emir of the Lebanon.'

'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!'

'The raiment that she wore is lying on the floor of her prison. Methinks she has fled.'

'She has fled with him who was false to us all,' said Astarte, 'for it was the Emir of the Lebanon who long ago told me that you were affianced to the daughter of Besso, and who warned me against joining in any enterprise which was only to place upon the throne of Syria one whom the laws of your own country would never recognise as your wife.'

'Intriguer!' said Tancred. 'Vile and inveterate intriguer!'

'It is well,' said Astarte. 'My spirit is more serene.'

'Would that Eva were with any one else!' said Tancred, thoughtfully, and speaking, as it were, to himself.

'Your thoughts are with the daughter of Besso,' said Astarte. 'You wish to follow her, to guard her, to restore her to her family.'

Tancred looked round and caught the glance of the Queen of the Ansarey, mortified, yet full of affection.

'It seems to me,' he said, 'that it is time for me to terminate a visit that has already occasioned you, royal lady, too much vexation.'

Astarte burst into tears.

'Let me go,' she said, 'you want a throne; this is a rude one, yet accept it. You require warriors, the Ansarey are invincible. My castle is not like those palaces of Antioch of which we have often talked, and which were worthy of you, but Gindarics is impregnable, and will serve you for your headquarters until you conquer that world which you are born to command.'

'I have been the unconscious agent in petty machinations,' said Tancred. 'I must return to the desert to recover the purity of my mind. It is Arabia alone that can regenerate the world.'

At this moment Cypros, who was standing apart, waved her scarf, and exclaimed, 'Royal lady, I perceive in the distance the ever-faithful messenger;' whereupon Astarte looked up, and, as yet invisible to the inexperienced glance of Tancred, recognised what was an infinitely small dusky speck, each moment becoming more apparent, until at length a bird was observed by all of them winging its way towards the Queen.

'Is it the ever-faithful Karaguus,' said Astarte; 'or is it Ruby-lips that ever brings good news?'

'It is Karaguus,' said Cypros, as the bird drew nearer and nearer; 'but it is not Karaguus of Damascus. By the ring on its neck, it is Karaguus of Aleppo.'

The pigeon now was only a few yards above the head of the Queen. Fatigued, but with an eye full of resolution, it fluttered for a moment, and then fell upon her bosom. Cypros advanced and lifted its weary wing, and untied the cartel which it bore, brief words, but full of meaning, and a terrible interest.

'The Pasha, at the head of five thousand regular troops, leaves Haleb to-morrow to invade our land.'

'Go,' said Astarte to Tancred; 'to remain here is now dangerous. Thanks to the faithful messenger, you have time to escape with ease from that land which you scorned to rule, and which loved you too well.'

'I cannot leave it in the hour of peril,' said Tancred. 'This invasion of the Ottomans may lead to results of which none dream. I will meet them at the head of your warriors!'


CHAPTER LVIII.


Three Letters of Cabala


IS THERE any news?' asked Adam Besso of Issachar, the son of Selim, the most cunning leech at Aleppo, and who by day and by night watched the couch which bore the suffering form of the pride and mainstay of the Syrian Hebrews.

'There is news, but it has not yet arrived,' replied Issachar, the son of Selim, a man advanced in life, but hale, with a white beard, a bright eye, and a benignant visage.

'There are pearls in the sea, but what are they worth?' murmured Besso.

'I have taken a Cabala,' said Issachar, the son of Selim, 'and three times that I opened the sacred book, there were three words, and the initial letter of each word is the name of a person who will enter this room this day, and every person will bring news.'

'But what news?' sighed Besso. 'The news of Tophet and of ten thousand demons?'

'I have taken a Cabala,' said Issachar, the son of Selim, 'and the news will be good.'

'To whom and from whom? Good to the Pasha, but not to me! good to the people of Haleb, but not, perhaps, to the family of Besso.'

'God will guard over his own. In the meanwhile, I must replace this bandage, noble Besso. Let me rest your arm upon this cushion and you will endure less pain.'

'Alas! worthy Issachar, I have wounds deeper than any you can probe.'

The resignation peculiar to the Orientals had sustained Besso under his overwhelming calamity. He neither wailed nor moaned. Absorbed in a brooding silence, he awaited the result of the measures which had been taken for the release of Eva, sustained by the chance of success, and caring not to survive if encountering failure. The Pasha of Aleppo, long irritated by the Ansarey, and meditating for some time an invasion of their country, had been fired by the all-influential representations of the family of Besso instantly to undertake a step which, although it had been for some time contemplated, might yet, according to Turkish custom, have been indefinitely postponed. Three regiments of the line, disciplined in the manner of Europe, some artillery, and a strong detachment of cavalry, had been ordered at once to invade the contiguous territory of the Ansarey. Hillel Besso had accompanied the troops, leaving his uncle under his paternal roof, disabled by his late conflict, but suffering from wounds which in themselves were serious rather than perilous.

Four days had elapsed since the troops had quitted Aleppo. It was the part of Hillel, before they had recourse to hostile movements, to obtain, if possible, the restoration of the prisoners by fair means; nor were any resources wanting to effect this purpose. A courier had arrived at Aleppo from Hillel, apprising Adam Besso that the Queen of the Ansarey had not only refused to give up the prisoners, but even declared that Eva had been already released; but Hillel concluded that this was merely trifling. This parleying had taken place on the border; the troops were about to force the passes on the following day.

About an hour before sunset, on the very same day that Issachar, the son of Selim, had taken more than one Cabala, some horsemen, in disorder, were observed from the walls by the inhabitants of Aleppo, galloping over the plain. They were soon recognised as the cavalry of the Pasha, the irregular heralds, it was presumed, of a triumph achieved. Hillel Besso, covered with sweat and dust, was among those who thus early arrived. He hastened at a rapid pace through the suburb of the city, scattering random phrases to those who inquired after intelligence as he passed, until he reached the courtyard of his own house.

''Tis well,' he observed, as he closed the gate. 'A battle is a fine thing, but, for my part, I am not sorry to find myself at home.'

'What is that?' inquired Adam Besso, as a noise reached his ear.

''Tis the letter of the first Cabala,' replied Issachar, the son of Selim.

'Uncle, it is I,' said Hillel, advancing.

'Speak,' said Adam Besso, in an agitated voice; 'my sight is dark.'

'Alas, I am alone!' said Hillel.

'Bury me in Jehoshaphat,' murmured Besso, as he sank back.

'But, my uncle, there is hope.'

'Speak, then, of hope,' replied Besso, with sudden vehemence, and starting from his pillow.

'Truly I have seen a child of the mountains, who persists in the tale that our Eva has escaped.'

'An enemy's device! Are the mountains ours? Where are the troops?'

'Were the mountains ours, I should not be here, my uncle. Look from the ramparts, and you will soon see the plain covered with the troops, at least with all of them who have escaped the matchlocks and the lances of the Ansarey.'

'Are they such