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

desert. It is always so: the world seems tame.'

'I am disappointed that Besso is not here. I am most anxious to see him.'

'Shall I send for the Colonel, my lord?' said Baroni, shaking Tancred's Arabian cloak.

'Well, I think I should let him return naturally,' said Tancred; 'sending for him is a scene; and I do not know why, Baroni, but I feel--I feel unstrung. I am surprised that there are no letters from England; and yet I am rather glad too, for a letter----'

'Received some months after its date,' said Baroni, 'is like the visit of a spectre. I shudder at the sight of it.'

'Heigho!' said Tancred, stretching his arm, and half-speaking to himself, 'I wish the battle of Gindarics had never ceased, but that, like some hero of enchantment, I had gone on for ever fighting.'

'Ah! there is nothing like action,' said Baroni, unscrewing his pistols.

'But what action is there in this world?' said Tancred. 'The most energetic men in Europe are mere busybodies. Empires are now governed like parishes, and a great statesman is only a select vestryman. And they are right: unless we bring man nearer to heaven, unless government become again divine, the insignificance of the human scheme must paralyse all effort.'

'Hem!' said Baroni, kneeling down and opening Tancred's rifle-case. The subject was getting a little too deep for him. 'I perceive,' he said to himself, 'that my lord is very restless. There is something at the bottom of his mind which, perhaps, he does not quite comprehend himself; but it will come out.' Tancred passed the day alone in reading, or walking about his room with an agitated and moody step. Often when his eye rested on the page, his mind wandered from the subject, and he was frequently lost in profound and protracted reverie. The evening drew on; he retired early to his room, and gave orders that he was not to be disturbed. At a later hour, Colonel Brace returned, having succeeded in his principal enterprise, and having also sung the national anthem. He was greatly surprised to hear that Lord Montacute had returned; but Baroni succeeded in postponing the interview until the morrow. An hour after the Colonel, the Rev. Mr. Bernard returned from Bethlehem. He was in great tribulation, as he had been pursued by some of the vagabonds of that ruffianly district; a shot had even been fired after him; but this was only to frighten him. The fact is, the leader of the band was his principal catechumen, who was extremely desirous of appropriating a very splendid copy of the Holy Writings, richly bound, and adorned with massy golden clasps, which the Duchess of Bellamont had presented to the Rev. Mr. Bernard before his departure, and which he always, as a sort of homage to one whom he sincerely respected, displayed on any eminent instance of conversion.

The gates of the city were closed when Dr. Roby returned, laden with many rare balsams. The consequence was, he was obliged to find quarters in a tomb in the valley of Jehoshaphat. As his attendant was without food, when his employer had sunk into philosophic repose, he supped off the precious herbs and roots, and slaked his thirst with a draught from the fountain of Siloah.

Tancred passed a night of agitating dreams. Sometimes he was in the starry desert, sometimes in the caverned dungeons of Gindarics. Then, again, the scene changed to Bellamont Castle, but it would seem that Fakredeen was its lord; and when Tancred rushed forward to embrace his mother, she assumed the form of the Syrian goddess, and yet the face was the face of Eva. Though disturbed, he slept, and when he woke, he was for a moment quite unconscious of being at Jerusalem. Although within a week of Christmas, no sensible difference had yet occurred in the climate. The golden sun succeeded the silver moon, and both reigned in a clear blue sky. You may dine at night on the terrace of your house at Jerusalem in January, and find a serene and benignant atmosphere.

Tancred rose early; no one was stirring in the house except the native servants, and Mr. Freeman, who was making a great disturbance about hot water. Tancred left a message with this gentleman for the Colonel and his companions, begging that they might all meet at breakfast, and adding that he was about to stroll for half an hour. Saying this, he quitted the house, and took his way by the gate of Stephen to the Mount of Olives.

It was a delicious morn, wonderfully clear, and soft, and fresh. It seemed a happy and a thriving city, that forlorn Jerusalem, as Tancred, from the heights of Olivet, gazed upon its noble buildings, and its cupolaed houses of freestone, and its battlemented walls and lofty gates. Nature was fair, and the sense of existence was delightful. It seemed to Tancred that a spicy gale came up the ravines of the wilderness, from the farthest Arabia.

Lost in prolonged reverie, the hours flew on. The sun was mounting in the heavens when Tancred turned his step, but, instead of approaching the city, he pursued a winding path in an opposite direction. That path led to Bethany.


CHAPTER LXI.


Arrival of the Duke and Duchess


THE crest of the palm tree in the garden of Eva glittered in the declining sun; and the lady of Bethany sat in her kiosk on the margin of the fountain, unconsciously playing with a flower, and gazing in abstraction on the waters. She had left Tancred with her father, now convalescent. They had passed the morning together, talking over the strange events that had occurred since they first became acquainted on this very spot; and now the lady of Bethany had retired to her own thoughts.

A sound disturbed her; she looked up and recognised Tancred.

'I could not refrain from seeing the sun set on Arabia,' he said; 'I had almost induced the noble Besso to be my companion.'

'The year is too old,' said Eva, not very composed.

'They should be midsummer nights,' said Tancred, 'as on my first visit here; that hour thrice blessed!' 'We know not what is blessed in this world,' said Eva, mournfully.

'I feel I do,' murmured Tancred; and he also seated himself on the margin of the fountain.

'Of all the strange incidents and feelings that we have been talking over this day,' said Eva, 'there seems to me but one result; and that is, sadness.'

'It is certainly not joy,' said Tancred.

'There comes over me a great despondency,' said Eva, 'I know not why, my convictions are as profound as they were, my hopes should not be less high, and yet----'

'And what?' said Tancred, in a low, sweet voice, for she hesitated.

'I have a vague impression,' said Eva, sorrowfully, 'that there have been heroic aspirations wasted, and noble energies thrown away; and yet, perhaps,' she added, in a faltering tone, 'there is no one to blame. Perhaps, all this time, we have been dreaming over an unattainable end, and the only source of deception is our own imagination.'

'My faith is firm,' said Tancred; 'but if anything could make it falter, it would be to find you wavering.'

'Perhaps it is the twilight hour,' said Eva, with a faint smile. 'It sometimes makes one sad.'

'There is no sadness where there is sympathy,' said Tancred, in a low voice. 'I have been, I am sad, when I am alone: but when I am with you, my spirit is sustained, and would be, come what might.'

'And yet----' said Eva; and she paused.

'And what?'

'Your feelings cannot be what they were before all this happened; when you thought only of a divine cause, of stars, of angels, and of our peculiar and gifted land. No, no; now it is all mixed up with intrigue, and politics, and management, and baffled schemes, and cunning arts of men. You may be, you are, free from all this, but your faith is not the same. You no longer believe in Arabia.'

'Why, thou to me art Arabia,' said Tancred, advancing and kneeling at her side. 'The angel of Arabia, and of my life and spirit! Talk not to me of faltering faith: mine is intense. Talk not to me of leaving a divine cause: why, thou art my cause, and thou art most divine! O Eva! deign to accept the tribute of my long agitated heart! Yes, I too, like thee, am sometimes full of despair; but it is only when I remember that I love, and love, perhaps, in vain!'

He had clasped her hand; his passionate glance met her eye, as he looked up with adoration to a face infinitely distressed. Yet she withdrew not her hand, as she murmured, with averted head, 'We must not talk of these things; we must not think of them. You know all.'

'I know of nothing, I will know of nothing, but of my love.'

'There are those to whom I belong; and to whom you belong. Yes,' she said, trying to withdraw her hand, 'fly, fly from me, son of Europe and of Christ!'

'I am a Christian in the land of Christ,' said Tancred, 'and I kneel to a daughter of my Redeemer's race. Why should I fly?'

'Oh! this is madness!'

'Say, rather, inspiration,' said Tancred, 'for I will not quit this fountain by which we first met until I am told, as you now will tell me,' he added, in a tone of gushing tenderness, 'that our united destinies shall advance the sovereign purpose of our lives. Talk not to me of others, of those who have claims on you or on myself. I have no kindred, no country, and, as for the ties that would bind you, shall such world-worn bonds restrain our consecrated aim? Say but you love me, and I will trample them to the dust.'

The head of Eva fell upon his shoulder. He impressed an embrace upon her cheek. It was cold, insensible. Her hand, which he still held, seemed to have lost all vitality. Overcome by contending emotions, the principle of life seemed to have deserted her. Tancred laid her reclining figure with gentleness on the mats of the kiosk; he sprinkled her pale face with some drops from the fountain; he chafed her delicate hand. Her eyes at length opened, and she sighed. He placed beneath her head some of the cushions that were at hand. Recovering, she slightly raised herself, leant upon the marble margin of the fountain, and looked about her with a wildered air.

At this moment a shout was heard, repeated and increased; soon the sound of many voices and the tramp of persons approaching. The vivid but brief twilight had died away. Almost suddenly it had become night. The voices became more audible, the steps were at hand. Tancred recognised his name, frequently repeated. Behold a crowd of many persons, several of them bearing torches. There was Colonel Brace in the van; on his right was the Rev. Mr. Bernard; on his left, was Dr. Roby. Freeman and Trueman and several guides and native servants were in the rear, most of them proclaiming the name of Lord Montacute.

'I am here,' said Tancred, advancing from the kiosk, pale and agitated. 'Why am I wanted?'

Colonel Brace began to explain, but all seemed to speak at the same time.

The Duke and Duchess of Bellamont had arrived at Jerusalem.