nomination of me. But to secure his success a finer move
was necessary. So I instructed Archbishop Murad, whom they received very
well at Paris, to open secret communications over the water with the
English. He did so, and offered to cross and explain in detail to their
ministers. I wished to assure them in London that I was devoted to
their interests; and I meant to offer to let the Protestant missionaries
establish themselves in the mountain, so that Sir Canning should have
received instructions to support my nomination by Riza. Then you see,
I should have had the Porte, England, and France. The game was won. Can
you believe it? Lord Aberdeen enclosed my agent's letter to Guizot. I
was crushed.'

'And disgraced. You deserved it. You never will succeed. Intrigue will
be your ruin, Fakredeen.'

'Intrigue!' exclaimed the prince, starting from the cushion near the
tripod, on which he sat, speaking with great animation and using, as
was his custom, a superfluity of expression, both of voice and hands
and eyes, 'intrigue! It is life! It is the only thing! How do you think
Guizot and Aberdeen got to be ministers without intrigue? Or Riza Pasha
himself? How do you think Mehemet Ali got on? Do you believe Sir Canning
never intrigues? He would be recalled in a week if he did not. Why, I
have got one of his spies in my castle at this moment, and I make
him write home for the English all that I wish them not to believe.
Intrigue! Why, England won India by intrigue. Do you think they are not
intriguing in the Punjaub at this moment? Intrigue has gained half the
thrones of Europe: Greece, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Russia. If
you wish to produce a result, you must make combinations; and you call
combinations, Eva, intrigue!'

'And this is the scrape that you are in,' said the lady. 'I do not see
how I can help you out of it.'

'Pardon; this is not the scrape: and here comes the point on which I
need your aid, daughter of a thousand sheikhs! I can extricate myself
from the Paris disaster, even turn it to account. I have made an
alliance with the patriarch of the Lebanon, who manages affairs for the
Emir Bescheer. The patriarch hates Murad, whom you see I was to have
made patriarch. I am to declare the Archbishop an unauthorised agent,
an adventurer, and my letter to be a forgery. The patriarch is to go
to Stamboul, with his long white beard, and put me right with France,
through De Bourqueney, with whom he has relations