Tancred by Benjamin Disraeli (year 2 reading books .TXT) 📕

which they did after much solicitation, vowing that they had no voice to-night, and that it was impossible at all times to sing except in a chamber.

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, with an extremely piquant air, 'music in a chamber is very charming, but I think also in the open air it is not so bad.'

Tancred took advantage of this movement to approach Eva, who was conversing, as they took their evening walk, with the soft-eyed sister of Hillel and Madame Nassim Farhi; a group of women that the drawing-rooms of Europe and the harems of Asia could perhaps not have rivalled.

'The Mesdemoiselles Laurella are very accomplished,' said Tancred, 'but at Damascus I am not content to hear anything but sackbuts and psalteries.'

'But in Europe your finest music is on the subjects of our history,' said Eva.

'Naturally,' said Tancred, 'music alone can do justice to such themes. They baffle the uninspired pen.'

'There is a prayer which the Mesdemoiselles Laurella once sang, a prayer of Moses in Egypt,' said Madame Nassim, somewhat timidly. 'It is very fine.'

'I wish they would favour us with it,' said Eva; 'I will ask Hillel to request that kindness;' and she beckoned to Hillel, who sauntered toward her, and listened to her whispered wish with a smile of supercilious complacency.

'At present they are going to favour us with Don Pasquale,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'A prayer is a very fine thing, but for my part, at this hour, I think a serenade is not so bad.'

'And how do you like my father?' said Eva to Tancred in a hesitating tone, and yet with a glance of blended curiosity and pride.

'He is exactly what Sidonia prepared me for; worthy not only of being your father, but the father of mankind.'

'The Moslemin say that we are near paradise at Damascus,' said Madame Nassim, 'and that Adam was fashioned out of our red earth.'

'He much wished to see you,' said Eva, 'and your meeting is as unexpected as to him it is agreeable.'

'We ought to have met long before,' said Tancred. 'When I first arrived at Jerusalem, I ought to have hastened to his threshold. The fault and the misfortune were mine. I scarcely deserved the happiness of knowing you.'

'I am happy we have all met, and that you now understand us a little. When you go back to England, you will defend us when we are defamed? You will not let them persecute us, as they did a few years back, because they said we crucified their children at the feast of our passover?'

'I shall not go back to England,' said Tancred, colouring; 'and if you are persecuted, I hope I shall be able to defend you here.'

The glowing sky, the soft mellow atmosphere, the brilliant surroundings, and the flowers and flashing gems, rich dresses and ravishing music, and every form of splendour and luxury, combined to create a scene that to Tancred was startling, as well from its beauty as its novel character. A rich note of Therese Laurella for an instant arrested their conversation. They were silent while it lingered on their ear. Then Tancred said to the soft-eyed sister of Hillel, 'All that we require here to complete the spell are your beautiful children.'

'They sleep,' said the lady, 'and lose little by not being present, for, like the Queen of Sheba, I doubt not they are dreaming of music and flowers.'

'They say that the children of our race are the most beautiful in the world,' said Eva, 'but that when they grow up, they do not fulfil the promise of their infancy.'

'That were scarcely possible,' said the soft-eyed mother.

'It is the sense of shame that comes on them and dims their lustre,' said Eva. 'Instead of joyous-ness and frank hilarity, anxiety and a shrinking reserve are soon impressed upon the youthful Hebrew visage. It is the seal of ignominy. The dreadful secret that they are an expatriated and persecuted race is soon revealed to them, at least among the humbler classes. The children of our house are bred in noble thoughts, and taught self-respect. Their countenances will not change.'

And the countenance from whose beautiful mouth issued those gallant words, what of that? It was one that might wilder the wisest. Tancred gazed upon it with serious yet fond abstraction. All heavenly and heroic thoughts gathered around the image of this woman. From the first moment of their meeting at Bethany to this hour of sacred festival, all the passages of his life in which she had been present flashed through his mind. For a moment he was in the ruins of the Arabian desert, and recalled her glance of sweet solicitude, when, recovered by her skill and her devotion, he recognised the fair stranger whose words had, ere that, touched the recesses of his spirit, and attuned his mind to high and holiest mysteries. Now again their eyes met; an ineffable expression suffused the countenance of Lord Monta-cute. He sighed.

At this moment Hillel and Fakredeen advanced with a hurried air of gaiety. Hillel offered his hand to Eva with jaunty grace, exclaiming at the same time, 'Ladies, if you like to follow us, you shall see a casket just arrived from Marseilles, and which Eva will favour me by carrying to Aleppo. It was chosen for me by the Lady of the Austrian Internuncio, who is now at Paris. For my part, I do not see much advantage in the diplomatic corps, if occasionally they do not execute a commission for one.'

Hillel hurried Eva away, accompanied by his sister and Madame Nassim. Tancred and Fakredeen remained behind.

'Who is this man?' said Tancred.

''Tis her affianced,' said the Emir; 'the man who has robbed me of my natural bride. It is to be hoped, however, that, when she is married, Besso will adopt me as his son, which in a certain sense I am, having been fostered by his wife. If he do not leave me his fortune, he ought at least to take up all my bills in Syria. Don't you think so, my Tancred?'

'What?' said Tancred, with a dreamy look.

There was a burst of laughter in the distance.

'Come, come,' said Fakredeen, 'see how they are all gathering round the marriage casket. Even Nassim Farhi has risen. I must go and talk to him: he has impulses, that man, at least compared with his brother; Mourad is a stone, a precious stone though, and you cannot magnetise him through his wife, for she has not an idea; but Madame Nassim is immensely mesmeric. Come, come, Tancred.'

'I follow.'

But instead of following his friend, Tancred entered one of the marble pavilions that jutted out from each corner of the terraced roof, and commanded splendid views of the glittering and gardened city. The moon had risen over that unrivalled landscape; the white minarets sparkled in its beam, and the vast hoods of the cupolaed mosques were suffused with its radiancy or reposed in dark shadow, almost as black as the cypress groves out of which they rose. In the extreme distance, beyond the fertile plain, was the desert, bright as the line of the sea, while otherwise around him extended the chains of Lebanon and of the North.

The countenance of Tancred was more than serious, it was sad, as, leaning against one of the wreathed marble pillars, he sighed and murmured: 'If I were thou, most beautiful Damascus, Aleppo should not rob me of such a gem! But I must tear up these thoughts from my heart by their roots, and remember that I am ordained for other deeds.'


CHAPTER XLIX.


A Discussion About Scammony


AFTER taking the bath on his arrival at Damascus, having his beard arranged by a barber of distinction, and dressing himself in a fresh white suit, as was his custom when in residence, with his turban of the same colour arranged a little aside, for Baroni was scrupulous as to his appearance, he hired a donkey and made his way to the great bazaar. The part of the city through which he proceeded was very crowded and bustling: narrow streets, with mats slung across, to shield from the sun the swarming population beneath. His accustomed step was familiar with every winding of the emporium of the city; he threaded without hesitation the complicated mazes of those interminable arcades. Now he was in the street of the armourers, now among the sellers of shawls; the prints of Manchester were here unfolded, there the silks of India; sometimes he sauntered by a range of shops gay with yellow papooshes and scarlet slippers, and then hurried by the stalls and shelves stored with the fatal frippery of the East, in which it is said the plague in some shape or other always lurks and lingers. This locality, however, indicated that Baroni was already approaching the purlieus of the chief places; the great population had already much diminished, the brilliancy of the scene much dimmed; there was no longer the swarm of itinerant traders who live by promptly satisfying the wants of the visitors to the bazaar in the shape of a pipe or an ice, a cup of sherbet or of coffee, or a basket of delicious fruit. The passengers were few, and all seemed busy: some Armenians, a Hebrew physician and his page, the gliding phantoms of some winding-sheets, which were in fact women.

Baroni turned into an arcade, well built, spacious, airy, and very neatly fitted up. This was the bazaar of the dealers in drugs. Here, too, spices are sold, all sorts of dye-woods, and especially the choice gums for which Arabia is still celebrated, and which Syria would fain rival by the aromatic juices of her pistachio and her apricot trees.

Seated on what may be called his counter, smoking a nargileh, in a mulberry-coloured robe bordered with fur, and a dark turban, was a middle-aged man of sinister countenance and air, a long hook nose and a light blue eye.

'Welcome, Effendi,' he said, when he observed Baroni; 'many welcomes! And how long have you been at Esh Sham?'

'Not too long,' said Baroni; 'and have you been here since my last visit?'

'Here and there,' said the man, offering him his pipe.

'And how are our friends in the mountains?' said Baroni, touching the tube with his lips and returning it.

'They live,' said the man.

'That's something,' said Baroni.

'Have you been in the land of the Franks?' said the man.

'I am always in the land of the Franks,' said Baroni, 'and about.'

'You don't know any one who wants a parcel of scammony?' said the man.

'I don't know that I don't,' said Baroni, mysteriously.

'I have a very fine parcel,' said the man; 'it is very scarce.'

'No starch or myrrh in it?' asked Baroni.

'Do you think I am a Jew?' said the man.

'I never could make out what you were, friend Darkush; but as for scammony, I could throw a good deal of business in your way at this moment, to say nothing of galls and tragacanth.'

'As for tragacanth,' said Darkush, 'it is known that no one in Esh Sham has pure tragacanth except me; as for galls, every foundling in Syria thinks he can deal in afis, but is it afis of Moussoul, Effendi?'

'What you say are the words of truth, good Darkush; I could recommend you with a safe conscience. I dreamt last night that there would many piastres pass between us