III.—­The Vision on the Mount

On the wild granite scarp of Mount Sinai, about seven thousand feet above the blue seas that lave its base, is a small plain hemmed in by pinnacles of rock.  In the centre of the plain are a cypress tree and a fountain.  This is the traditional scene of the greatest event in the history of mankind.  It was here that Moses received the divine laws on which the civilisation of the world is based.

Tancred of Montacute knelt down on the sacred soil, and bowed his head in prayer.  Far below him, in one of the green-valleys sloping down to the sea, Fakredeen and a band of Bedouins pitched their tents for the night, and talked in awed tones of their strange companion.  Wonderful is the power of soul with which a great idea endues a man.  The young emir of Lebanon and his men were no longer the captors of Tancred, but his followers.  He had preached to them with the eyes of flame and the words of fire of a prophet; and they now asked of him, not a ransom, but a revelation.  They wanted him to bring down from Sinai the new word of power, which would bind their scattered tribes into a mighty nation, with a divine mission for all the world.

What was this word to be?  Tancred did not know any more than his followers, and he knelt all day long under the Arabian sun, waiting for the divine revelation.  The sunlight faded, and the shadows fell around him, and he still remained bowed in a strange, quiet ecstasy of expectation.  But at last, lifting up his eyes to the clear, starry sky of Arabia, he prayed: 

“O Lord God of Israel, I come to Thine ancient dwelling-place to pour forth the heart of tortured Europe.  Why does no impulse from Thy renovating will strike again into the soul of man?  Faith fades and duty dies, and a profound melancholy falls upon the world.  Our kings cannot rule, our priests doubt, and our multitudes toil and moan, and call in their madness upon unknown gods.  If this transfigured mount may not again behold Thee, if Thou wilt not again descend to teach and console us, send, oh send, one of the starry messengers that guard Thy throne, to save Thy creatures from their terrible despair!”

As he prayed all the stars of Arabia grew strangely dim.  The wild peaks of Sinai, standing sharp and black in the lucid, purple air, melted into shadowy, changing masses.  The huge branches of the cypress-tree moved mysteriously above his head, and he fell upon the earth senseless and in a trance.

It seemed to Tancred that a mighty form was bending over him with a countenance like an oriental night, dark yet lustrous, mystical yet clear.  The solemn eyes of the shadowy apparition were full of the brightness and energy of youth and the calm wisdom of the ages.

“I am the Angel of Arabia,” said the spectral figure, waving a sceptre fashioned like a palm-tree, “the guardian spirit of the land which governs the world; for its power lies neither in the sword nor in the shield, for these pass away, but in ideas which are divine.  All the thoughts of every nation come from a higher power than man, but the thoughts of Arabia come directly from the Most High.  You want a new revelation to Christendom?  Listen to the ancient message of Arabia!