The magic
signature of Lord Montacute settled the long-vexed question of the
five thousand muskets, and secured also ten thousand piastres for the
commander of the escort to deliver to his chief. The children of Rechab,
in convoy of the precious charge, certain cases of which were to be
delivered to the great Sheikh, and the rest to be deposited in indicated
quarters of the Lebanon, here took leave of the Emir and his friend,
and pursued their course to the north of Hebron and the Dead Sea, in the
direction of the Hauraan, where they counted, if not on overtaking
the great Sheikh, at least on the additional security which his
neighbourhood would ensure them. Their late companions remained at Gaza,
awaiting Tancred's yacht, which Baroni fetched from the neighbouring
Jaffa. A favourable breeze soon carried them from Gaza to Beiroot,
where they landed, and where Fakredeen had the political pleasure of
exhibiting his new and powerful ally, a prince, an English prince,
the brother perhaps of a queen, unquestionably the owner of a splendid
yacht, to the admiring eye of all his, at the same time, credulous and
rapacious creditors.
The air of the mountains invigorated Tancred. His eyes had rested so
long on the ocean and the desert, that the effect produced on the nerves
by the forms and colours of a more varied nature were alone reviving.
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