aminated by the blood of one who crucified his Saviour;
his Saviour being, by his own statement, one of the princes of our royal
house. No; I will never become a Christian, if I am to eat such sand! It
is not to be found in your books. They were written by Jews, men far
too well acquainted with their subject to indite such tales of the
Philistines as these!'

Tancred looked at her with deep interest as her eye flashed fire, and
her beautiful cheek was for a moment suffused with the crimson cloud of
indignant passion; and then he said, 'You speak of things that deeply
interest me, or I should not be in this land. But tell me: it cannot
be denied that, whatever the cause, the miracle exists; and that the
Hebrews, alone of the ancient races, remain, and are found in every
country, a memorial of the mysterious and mighty past.'

'Their state may be miraculous without being penal. But why miraculous?
Is it a miracle that Jehovah should guard his people? And can He guard
them better than by endowing them with faculties superior to those of
the nations among whom they dwell?'

'I cannot believe that merely human agencies could have sustained a
career of such duration and such vicissitudes.'

'As for human agencies, we have a proverb: "The will of man is the
servant of God." But if you wish to make a race endure, rely upon it
you should expatriate them. Conquer them, and they may blend with
their conquerors; exile them, and they will live apart and for ever.
To expatriate is purely oriental, quite unknown to the modern world. We
were speaking of the Armenians, they are Christians, and good ones, I
believe.'

'I have understood very orthodox.' 'Go to Armenia, and you will not find
an Armenian. They, too, are an expatriated nation, like the Hebrews. The
Persians conquered their land, and drove out the people. The Armenian
has a proverb: "In every city of the East I find a home." They are
everywhere; the rivals of my people, for they are one of the great
races, and little degenerated: with all our industry, and much of our
energy; I would say, with all our human virtues, though it cannot be
expected that they should possess our divine qualities; they have not
produced Gods and prophets, and are proud that they can trace up their
faith to one of the obscurest of the Hebrew apostles, and who never knew
his great master.'

'But the Armenians are found only in the East,' said Tancred.

'Ah!' said the lady, with a sarcastic smi