'
'There is something most interesting,' said Tancred, 'in this idea of
a single family issuing from obscurity, and disseminating their genius
through the world, charming mankind with so many spells. How fortunate
for you all that Sidonia had so much feeling for genius!'
'And some feeling for his race,' said Baroni.
'How?' said Tancred, startled.
'You remember he whispered something in my father's ear?'
'I remember.'
'He spoke it in Hebrew, and he was understood.'
'You do not mean that you, too, are Jews?'
'Pure Sephardim, in nature and in name.'
'But your name surely is Italian?'
'Good Arabic, my lord. Baroni; that is, the son of Aaron; the name of
old clothesmen in London, and of caliphs at Bagdad.'
CHAPTER XLI.
_The Mountains of Lebanon_
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 clothed also, with their stout
trunks, their wide-spreading branches, and their rich starry foliage,
the opposite and undulating hills, one of which was crowned with a
convent. 'It is the only oak forest in Syria. It will serve some day to
build our fleet.'
At Gaza, which they had reached by easy journeys, for Fakredeen was very
considerate of the health of Tancred, whose wound had scarcely healed,
and over whom he watched with a delicate solicitude which would have
almost become a woman, the companions met Scheriff Effendi.
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