This
latter was a frequent, and to him inexhaustible, source of interest and
excitement. His creative brain was soon lost in reverie. He conjured up
Tancred restored to health, a devoted friendship between them, immense
plans, not inferior achievements, and inexhaustible resources. Then,
when he remembered that he was himself the cause of the peril of that
precious life on which all his future happiness and success were to
depend, he cursed himself. Involved as were the circumstances in which
he habitually found himself entangled, the present complication was
certainly not inferior to any of the perplexities which he had hitherto
experienced.
He was to become the bosom friend of a being whom he had successfully
plotted to make a prisoner and plunder, and whose life was consequently
endangered; he had to prevail on Amalek to relinquish the ransom which
had induced the great Sheikh to quit his Syrian pastures, and had cost
the lives of some of his most valuable followers; while, on the other
hand, the new moon was rapidly approaching, when the young Emir had
appointed to meet Scheriff Effendi at Gaza, to receive the arms and
munitions which were to raise him to empire, and for which he had
purposed to pay by a portion of his share in the great plunder which
he had himself projected.
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