“Your people now hanker after other gods than the God of Sinai and Calvary.  But the eternal principles of that Arabian faith, which moulded them from savages into civilised men when they descended from their northern forests fifteen hundred years ago, and spread all over the world, can alone breathe new vigour into them, now that they are decaying in the dust and fever of their great cities.  Tell them that they must cease from seeking in their vain philosophies for the solution of their social problems.  Their, longing for the brotherhood of mankind can only be satisfied when they acknowledge the sway of a common father.  Tell them that they are the children of God.  Announce the sublime and solacing doctrine of theocratic equality.  Fear not, falter not.  Obey the impulse of thine own spirit, and find a ready instrument in every human being.”

A sound as of thunder roused Tancred from his trance.  Above him the mountains rose sharp and black in the clear purple air, and the Arabian stars shone with undimmed brightness; but the voice of the angel still lingered in his ear.  He went down the mountain; at its base he found his followers sleeping amid their camels.  He aroused Fakredeen, and told him that he had received the word which would bind together the warring nations of Arabia and Palestine, and reshape the earth.

IV.—­The Mystic Queen

“It has been a great day,” said Tancred to Fakredeen, as they were sitting some months afterwards in the castle of the young emir of Lebanon, where all the princes of Syria had assembled to discuss the foundation of the new empire.  “If your friends will only work together as they promise, Syria is ours.”

“Even Lebanon,” said Fakredeen, “can send forth more than fifty thousand well-armed footmen, and Amalek is gathering all the horsemen of the desert, from Petraea to Yemen, under our banner.  If we can only win over the Ansarey,” he continued, “we shall have all Syria and Arabia as a base for our operations.”

“The Ansarey?” exclaimed Tancred.  “They hold the mountains around Antioch, which are the key of Palestine, don’t they?  What is their religion?  Do you think that the doctrine of theocratic equality would appeal to them as it did to the Arabians?”

“I don’t know,” said the emir.  “They never allow strangers to enter their country.  They are a very ancient people, and they fight so well in their mountains that even the Turks have not been able to conquer them.”

“But can’t we make overtures?” said Tancred.

“That is what I have done,” said Fakredeen.  “The Queen of the Ansarey has heard about you, and I have arranged that we should go and see her as soon as the Syrian assembly was over.  Everything is ready for our journey, so, if you like, we will start at once.”

It was a difficult expedition, as the Queen of the Ansarey was then waging war on the Turkish pasha of Aleppo.  Happily, the travellers came upon a band of Ansareys who were raiding the Turkish province, and were led by them through their black ravines to the fortress palace of the queen.