So far his course is straight.  But he has scarcely returned home, when he falls in love with Anael, a Druse girl, whose devotion to her tribe is a religion, and who is determined to marry none but the man who will deliver it; and he is then seized by an impulse to heighten the act of deliverance by a semblance of more than human power.  He declares himself Hakeem, the Divine founder of the sect, again present in human form, and who will again be transformed, or “exalted,” so soon as by the slaughter of their tyrant he has set the Druses free.  His bride will be exalted with him.  The imposture succeeds only too well.  “Mystic” as well as “schemer,” Djabal, for a moment, deceives even himself; and when the crisis is at hand, and reason and conscience reassert themselves, the enthusiasm which he has kindled still forces him on.  His only refuge is in flight; and even this proves impossible.  He nerves himself, before escaping, to the Prefect’s murder; and is confronted on the threshold of the Prefect’s chamber, by his promised wife, who has herself done the deed.

Anael has loved Djabal, believing him Divine, with what seemed to her too human a love.  She felt unworthy to share his exaltation.  She has done that which her humanity disclaimed that she might no longer be so.  A few moments more, and they both know that the crime has been superfluous.  Lois, who also loves Anael, and hopes to win her, has procured from the Chapter of his Order the removal of the tyrant, and been appointed by it in his place; the day of Druse oppression was already over.  But Djabal and Anael are inseparably united.  The scorn with which she received his now inevitable confession was intense but momentary.  The woman’s heart in her revels in its new freedom to cherish and to protect; and she embraces her lover’s shame with a far greater joy than their common triumph could have aroused in her.  She is brought forward as the Prefect’s murderer in presence of all the personages of the drama; and falls dead with a cry of “Hakeem” on her lips.  Djabal stabs himself on her body, thus “exalting” himself to her.  But he has first committed his Druses to the care of Lois, to be led back to their mountain home.  He remains Hakeem for them, though branded as an impostor by the rest of the world.  Directly, or indirectly, he has done the work of the deliverer.

“A BLOT IN THE ’SCUTCHEON” is a tragedy in three acts, less intricate as well as shorter than those which precede it; and historical only in the simple motive, the uncompromising action, and the mediaeval code of honour, which in some degree fix its date.  Mr. Browning places this somewhere in the eighteenth century.