, and done quickly, and
Canobia is yours.'

'Do you ever dream?' said Astrate to Tancred. 'They say that life is
a dream.' 'I sometimes wish it were. Its pangs are too acute for a
shadow.'

'But you have no pangs.'

'I had a dream when you were away, in which I was much alarmed,' said
Astarte. 'Indeed!'

'I thought that Gindarics was taken by the Jews. I suppose you have
talked of them to me so much that my slumbering memory wandered.'

'It is a resistless and exhaustless theme,' said Tancred; 'for the
greatness and happiness of everything, Gindarics included, are comprised
in the principles of which they were the first propagators.'

'Nevertheless, I should be sorry if my dream came to be true,' said
Astarte.

'May your dreams be as bright and happy as your lot, royal lady!' said
Tancred.

'My lot is not bright and happy,' said the Queen; 'once I thought it
was, but I think so no longer.'

'But why?'

'I wish you could have a dream and find out,' said the Queen.
'Disquietude is sometimes as perplexing as pleasure. Both come and go
like birds.'

'Like the pigeon you sent to Damascus,' said Tancred.

'Ah! why did I send it?'

'Because you were most gracious, lady.'

'Because I was very rash, noble prince.'

'When the great deeds are done to which this visit will lead, you will
not think so.'

'I am not born for great deeds; I am a woman, and I am content with
beautiful ones.'

'You still dream of the Syrian goddess,' said Tan-cred.

'No; not of the Syrian goddess. Tell me: they say the Hebrew women are
very lovely, is it so?'

'They have that reputation.'

'But do you think so?'

'I have known some distinguished for their beauty.'

'Do they resemble the statue in our temple?'

'Their style is different,' said Tancred; 'the Greek and the Hebrew are
both among the highest types of the human form.'

'But you prefer the Hebrew?'

'I am not so discriminating a critic,' said Tancred; 'I admire the
beautiful.'

'Well, here comes my captive,' said the Queen; 'if you like, you shall
free her, for she wonderfully takes me. She is a Georgian, I suppose,
and bears the palm from all of us. I will not presume to contend with
her: she would vanquish, perhaps, even that fair Jewess of whom, I hear,
you are so enamoured.'

Tancred started, and would have replied, but Cypros advanced at this
moment with her charge, who withdrew her veil as she seated herself, as
commanded, before the Queen. She with