ouncil, as I well know from an Englishman who was at
Beiroot, and with whom I have formed some political relations, of which
perhaps some day you will hear.'

'Well, we have arrived at a stage of your career, Fakredeen, in which no
combination presents itself; I am powerless to assist you; my resources,
never very great, are quite exhausted.'

'No,' said the Emir, 'the game is yet to be won. Listen, Rose of Sharon,
for this is really the point on which I came to hold counsel. A young
English lord has arrived at Jerusalem this week or ten days past; he
is of the highest dignity, and rich enough to buy the grand bazaar of
Damascus; he has letters of credit on your father's house without
any limit. No one can discover the object of his mission. I have some
suspicions; there is also a French officer here who never speaks; I
watch them both. The Englishman, I learnt this morning, is going to
Mount Sinai. It is not a pilgrimage, because the English are really
neither Jews nor Christians, but follow a sort of religion of their own,
which is made every year by their bishops, one of whom they have sent
to Jerusalem, in what they call a parliament, a college of muftis; you
understand. Now lend me that ear that is like an almond of Aleppo! I
propose that one of the tribes that obey your grandfather shall make
this Englishman prisoner as he traverses the desert. You see? Ah! Rose
of Sharon, I am not yet beat; your Fakredeen is not the baffled boy
that, a few minutes ago, you looked as if you thought him. I defy
Ibrahim, or the King of France, or Palmerston himself, to make a
combination superior to this. What a ransom! The English lord will pay
Scheriff Effendi for his five thousand muskets, and for their conveyance
to the mountain besides.'

CHAPTER XXVIII.

_Besso, the Banker_

IN ONE of those civil broils at Damascus which preceded the fall of the
Janissaries, an Emir of the house of Shehaab, who lost his life in the
fray, had, in the midst of the convulsion, placed his infant son in the
charge of the merchant Besso, a child most dear to him, not only because
the babe was his heir, but because his wife, whom he passionately
loved, a beautiful lady of Antioch and of one of the old families of the
country, had just sacrificed her life in giving birth to their son.

The wife of Besso placed the orphan infant at her own breast, and the
young Fakredeen was brought up in every respect as a child of the house;
so that