'Even
now I see her,' said Besso.
He could say no more, for the sweetest form in the world had locked him
in her arms.
''Tis the letter of the third Cabala,' said Issachar, the son of Selim.
CHAPTER LIX.
_Tancred Returns to Jerusalem_
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 defence on the borders, and by the
careful dissemination of false intelligence, he had allowed the Pasha
and his troops to penetrate the mountains, and principally by a pass
which the Turks were assured by their spies that the Ansarey had
altogether neglected. The success of these manoeuvres had been as
complete as the discomfiture and rout of the Turks. Tancred, at the head
of the cavalry, had pursued them into the plain, though he had halted,
for an instant, before he quitted the mountains, to send a courier to
Astarte from himself with the assurance of victory, and the horsetails
of the Pasha for a trophy.
It so happened, however, that, while Tancred, with very few attendants,
was scouring the plain, and driving before him a panic-struck multitude,
who, if they could only have paused and rallied, might in a moment have
overwhelmed him, a strong body of Turkish cavalry, who had entered
the mountains by a different pass from that in which the principal
engagement had taken place, but who, learning the surprise and defeat of
the main body, had thought it wise to retreat in order and watch events,
debouched at this moment from the high country into the plain and in the
rear of Tancred.
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