Tancred; Or, The New Crusade

THE Emir of the Lebanon and his English friend did not depart from the desert city until the morrow, Fakredeen being so wearied by his journey that he required repose.

GALLOPED up the winding steep of Canobia the Sheikh Said Djinblat, one of the most popular chieftains of the Druses; amiable and brave, trustworthy and soft-mannered. Four of hi...

BEFORE Tancred could recover from his surprise, the kiosk was invaded by a crowd of little grinning negro pages, dressed in white tunics, with red caps and slippers. They bore a...

THE week of celebration was over: some few guests remained, near relatives, and not very rich, the Montacute Mountjoys, for example. They came from a considerable distance, and...

THE sun had been declining for some hours, the glare of the earth had subsided, the fervour of the air was allayed. A caravan came winding round the hills, with many camels and...

THE dawn was about to break in a cloudless sky, when Tancred, accompanied by Baroni and two servants, all well armed and well mounted, and by Hassan, a sheikh of the Jellaheen B...

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 con...

‘But now you think I am sufficiently fresh for new troubles.’ ‘He spoke it in Hebrew, that myself and Sheikh Hassan should not understand him, but I know something of that diale...

THE Duke of Bellamont was a personage who, from his rank, his blood, and his wealth, might almost be placed at the head of the English nobility. Although the grandson of a mere...

IN THE Home Park was a colossal pavilion, which held more than two thousand persons, and in which the townsfolk of Montacute were to dine; at equal distances were several smalle...

IT WAS destined that Napoleon should never enter Rome, and Mahomet never enter Damascus. What was the reason of this? They were not uninterested in those cities that interest al...

THEY seated themselves at a round table, on which everything seemed brilliant and sparkling; nothing heavy, nothing oppressive. There was scarcely anything that Sidonia disliked...

IN AN almost circular valley, surrounded by mountains, Amalek, great Sheikh of the Rechabite Bedouins, after having crossed the peninsula of Petrasa from the great Syrian desert...

THE sudden apparition of Eva at Gindarics, and the scene of painful mystery by which it was followed, had plunged Tancred into the greatest anxiety and affliction. It was in vai...

TANCRED rapidly recovered. On the second day after his recognition of Eva, he had held that conversation with Fakredeen which had determined the young Emir not to lose a moment...

IT HAS been long decreed that no poet may introduce the Phoenix. Scylla and Charybdis are both successfully avoided even by provincial rhetoric. The performance of Hamlet with t...

OUR travellers were speculating, not very sanguinely, on the possible resources which Gindarics might supply for the amusement of a week, when, to their great relief, they were...

THE beautiful daughter of Besso, pensive and abstracted, played with her beads in the pavilion of her grandfather. Two of her maidens, who had attended her, in a corner of this...

THERE is nothing so remarkable as feminine influence. Although the character of Tancred was not completely formed--for that result depends, in some degree, upon the effect of ci...

IT WAS not so much a conviction as a suspicion that Tancred had conveyed to the young Emir, when the pilgrim had confessed that the depressing thought sometimes came over him, t...

THE day was brilliant: music, sunshine, ravishing bonnets, little parasols that looked like large butterflies. The new phaetons glided up, then carriages-and-four swept by; in g...

TANCRED passed a night of great disquiet. His mind was agitated, his purposes indefinite; his confidence in himself seemed to falter. Where was that strong will that had always...

IN ONE of a series of chambers excavated in the mountains, yet connected with the more artificial portion of the palace, chambers and galleries which in the course of ages had s...

TANCRED entered Sequin Court; a chariot with a foreign coronet was at the foot of the great steps which he ascended. He was received by a fat hall porter, who would not have dis...

THEN days had elapsed since the capture of Tancred; Amalek and his Arabs were still encamped in the rocky city; the beams of the early sun were just rising over the crest of the...

NOTWITHSTANDING all the prescient care of the Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, it was destined that the stout arm of Colonel Brace should not wave by the side of their son when he...

WHEN Fakredeen bade Tancred as usual good-night, his voice was different from its accustomed tones; he had replied to Tancred with asperity several times during the evening; and...

I AM sorry, my dear mother, that I cannot accompany you; but I must go down to my yacht this morning, and on my return from Greenwich I have an engagement.’

WE OUGHT to have met at Jerusalem,’ said Tancred to Besso, on whose right hand he was seated, ‘but I am happy to thank you for all your kindness, even at Damascus.’ ‘My daughter...

IN THAT part of the celebrated parish of St. George which is bounded on one side by Piccadilly and on the other by Curzon Street, is a district of a peculiar character. ‘Tis clu...

‘That is to say, their present system,’ replied Fakredeen. ‘Islamism was propagated by men who were previously idolaters, and our principle may be established by those whose pra...

NEAR the gate of Sion there is a small, still, hilly street, the houses of which, as is general in the East, present to the passenger, with the exception of an occasional portal...

WHEN the duchess found that the interview with the bishop had been fruitless of the anticipated results, she was staggered, disheartened; but she was a woman of too high a spiri...

‘WHERE is Besso?’ said Barizy of the Tower, as the Consul Pasqualigo entered the divan of the merchant, about ten days after the departure of Tancred from Jerusalem for Mount Si...

AT THE black gorge of a mountain pass sat, like sentries, two horsemen. Their dress was that of the Kurds: white turbans, a black shirt girt with cords, on their backs a long la...

PASSING through a marble antechamber, Tancred was ushered into an apartment half saloon and half-library; the choicely-bound volumes, which were not too numerous, were ranged on...

‘But truth had descended from Heaven before Jesus,’ replied Fakredeen; ‘since, as you tell me, God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, and since then to many of the prophets and the...

THE duke returned rather late from Bellamont, and went immediately to his dressing-room. A few minutes before dinner the duchess knocked at his door and entered. She seemed disc...

AFTER this consultation with Lord Eskdale, the duchess became easier in her mind. She was of a sanguine temper, and with facility believed what she wished. Affairs stood thus: i...

TANCRED and Fakredeen had been absent from Gindarics for two or three days, making an excursion in the neighbouring districts, and visiting several of those chieftains whose fut...

THAT is most striking in London is its vastness. It is the illimitable feeling that gives it a special character. London is not grand. It possesses only one of the qualification...

‘Lady Bertie and Bellair returns Lord Montacute his carriage with a thousand compliments and thanks. She fears she greatly incommoded Lord Montacute, but begs to assure him how...

THE sun shone brightly, there was a triumphal arch at every road; the market-place and the town-hall were caparisoned like steeds for a tournament, every house had its garland;...

‘Besso always comes to Jerusalem when he is indisposed,’ said Barizy; ‘as he well says, ‘tis the only air that can cure him; and, if he cannot be cured, why, at least, he can be...

‘But, my dearest Katherine, the blow was as unlooked-for by me as by yourself. I had not, how could I have, a remote suspicion of what was passing through his mind?’

ABOUT the time of the marriage of the Duchess of Bellamont, her noble family, and a few of their friends, some of whom also believed in the millennium, were persuaded that the c...

THEY are talking about it,’ said Lord Eskdale to the duchess, as she looked up to him with an expression of the deepest interest. ‘He asked St. Patrick to introduce him to her a...

AFTER taking the bath on his arrival at Damascus, having his beard arranged by a barber of distinction, and dressing himself in a fresh white suit, as was his custom when in res...

THE broad moon lingers on the summit of Mount Olivet, but its beam has long left the garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of Absalom, the waters of Kedron and the dark abyss of Jeh...

TANCRED had profited by his surprise by the children of Rechab in the passes of the Stony Arabia, and had employed the same tactics against the Turkish force. By a simulated def...

EVA had withdrawn from her father to her former remote position, the moment that she had recognised the two friends, and was, therefore, not in hearing when her father received...

IS THERE any news?’ asked Adam Besso of Issachar, the son of Selim, the most cunning leech at Aleppo, and who by day and by night watched the couch which bore the suffering form...

THE forest of Montacute, in the north of England, is the name given to an extensive district, which in many parts offers no evidence of the propriety of its title. The land, esp...

HOW do you like my forest?’ asked Fakredeen of Tancred, as, while descending a range of the Lebanon, an extensive valley opened before them, covered with oak trees, which clothe...

THE Christian convents form one of the most remarkable features of modern Jerusalem. There are three principal ones; the Latin Convent of Terra Santa, founded, it is believed, d...

THREE or four days had elapsed since the departure of Fakredeen, and during each of them Tancred saw Eva; indeed, his hours were much passed in the pavilion of the great Sheikh,...

‘No, my lord; and no one else. They hold the mountainous country about Antioch, and will let no one enter it; a very warlike race; they beat back the Egyptians; but Ibrahim Pash...

BETWEEN the Egyptian and the Arabian deserts, formed by two gulfs of the Erythraean Sea, is a peninsula of granite mountains. It seems as if an ocean of lava, when its waves wer...

‘SAW Eskdale just now,’ said Mr. Cassilis, at White’s, ‘going down to the Duke of Bellamont’s. Great doings there: son comes of age at Easter. Wonder what sort of fellow he is?...

THE crest of the palm tree in the garden of Eva glittered in the declining sun; and the lady of Bethany sat in her kiosk on the margin of the fountain, unconsciously playing wit...

AWAY, away, Cypros! I can remain no more; my heart beats so.’ ‘Sweet lady,’ replied Cypros, ‘it is surprise that agitates you.’ ‘Is it surprise, Cypros? I did not know it was su...