While her mind was
recurring to those thoughts which occupied them previously to this
outbreak, the voice of Fakredeen was heard outside her tent, saying,
'Rose of Sharon, let me come into the harem;' and, scarcely waiting for
permission, the young Emir, flushed and excited, entered, and almost
breathless threw himself on the divan.
'Who says I am a coward?' he exclaimed, with a glance of devilish
mockery. 'I may run away sometimes, but what of that? I have got moral
courage, the only thing worth having since the invention of gunpowder.
The beast is not killed, but I have looked into the den; 'tis something.
Courage, my fragrant Rose, have faith in me at last. I may make an
imbroglio sometimes, but, for getting out of a scrape, I would back
myself against any picaroon in the Levant; and that is saying a good
deal.'
'Another imbroglio?'
'Oh, no! the same; part of the great blunder. You must have heard us
raging like a thousand Afrites. I never knew the great Sheikh so wild.'
'And why?'
'He should take a lesson from Mehemet Ali,' continued the Emir. 'Giving
up Syria, after the conquest, was a much greater sacrifice than giving
up plunder which he has not yet touched. And the great Pasha did it as
quietly as if he were marching into Stamboul instead, which he might
have done if he had been an Arab instead of a Turk.
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