in favour of the Emir
Bescheer; my uncle is to be thrown over; all the Maronite chiefs are
to sign a declaration supplicating the Porte to institute me; nay, the
declaration is signed----'

'And the Druses? Will not this Maronite manifestation put you wrong with
the Druses?'

'I live among the Druses, you see,' said Fakredeen, shaking his head,
and looking with his glittering eye a thousand meanings. 'The Druses
love me. They know that I am one of themselves. They will only think
that I have made the Maronites eat sand.'

'And what have you really done for the Maronites to gain all this?'
asked the lady, quietly.

'There it is,' said Fakredeen, speaking in an affected whisper, 'the
greatest stroke of state that ever entered the mind of a king without
a kingdom, for I am resolved that the mountain shall be a royalty I You
remember when Ibrahim Pasha laid his plans for disarming the Lebanon,
the Maronites, urged by their priests, fell into the snare, while the
Druses wisely went with their muskets and scimitars, and lived awhile
with the eagle and the antelope. This has been sand to the Maronites
ever since. The Druses put their tongues in their cheek whenever they
meet, and treat them as so many women. The Porte, of course, will do
nothing for the Maronites; they even take back the muskets which they
lent them for the insurrection. Well, as the Porte will not arm them, I
have agreed to do it.'

'You!'

''Tis done; at least the caravan is laden; we only want a guide.
And this is why I am at Jerusalem. Scheriff Effendi, who met me here
yesterday, has got me five thousand English muskets, and I have arranged
with the Bedouin of Zoalia to carry them to the mountain.'

'You have indeed Solomon's signet, my dear Fakredeen.'

'Would that I had; for then I could pay two hundred thousand piastres
to that Egyptian camel, Scheriff Effendi, and he would give me up my
muskets, which now, like a true son of Eblis, he obstinately retains.'

'And this is your scrape, Fakredeen. And how much have you towards the
sum?'

'Not a piastre; nor do I suppose I shall ever see, until I make a great
financial stroke, so much of the sultan's gold as is on one of the gilt
balls of roses in your nargileh. My crops are sold for next year, my
jewels are gone, my studs are to be broken up. There is not a cur in the
streets of Beiroot of whom I have not borrowed money. Riza Pasha is a
sponge that would dry the sea of Galilee.'

'It is a gr