See, Dreux', our house's blazon, which the Nuncio

Tacks to an Hospitallers' vest to-day!

Kha. The Nuncio we await?

From Rhodes, Sir Loys?

Loys.

What brings you back

How you island tribe

Forget, the world 's awake while here you drowse ! What brings me back? What should not bring me,

rather?

Our Patriarch's Nuncio visits you to-day—

Is not my year's probation out? I come
To take the knightly vows.

Kha.

What's that you wear?

Loys. This Rhodian cross ? The cross your Prefect

wore.

You should have seen, as I saw, the full Chapter
Rise, to a man, while they transferred this cross
From that unworthy Prefect's neck to (fool-
My secret will escape me!) In a word,

My year's probation 's passed, and Knight ere eve
Am I; bound, like the rest, to yield my wealth

To the common stock, to live in chastity,

(We Knights espouse alone our Order's fame)

-Change this gay weed for the black white-crossed gown,

And fight to death against the Infidel

-Not, therefore, against you, you Christians with

Such partial difference only as befits

The peacefullest of tribes! But Khalil, prithee,

Is not the Isle brighter than wont to-day?

Kha. Ah, the new sword!

Kha. [waving with irrepressible exultation the sword.]
We are a nation, Loys, of old fame

Among the mountains! Rights have we to keep
With the sword too!

[Remembering himself.] But I forget-you bid me
Seek Djabal?

Loys.

What! A sword's sight scares you not?

(The people I will make of him and them!

Oh, let my Prefect-sway begin at once!)

Bring Djabal-say, indeed, that come he must!

Kha. At noon seek Djabal in the Prefect's Chamber, And find [Aside.] Nay, 'tis thy cursed race's token, Frank pride, no special insolence of thine!

[Aloud.] Tarry and I will do your bidding, Loys.

[To the rest aside.] Now, forth you! I proceed to Djabal

straight.

Leave this poor boy, who knows not what he says.

Oh, will it not add joy to even thy joy,

Djabal, that I report all friends were true?

KHALIL goes, followed by the Druses.

Loys. Tu Dieu! How happy I shall make these

Druses!

Was 't not surpassingly contrived of me

To get the long list of their wrongs by heart,
Then take the first pretence for stealing off
From these poor islanders, present myself
Sudden at Rhodes before the noble Chapter,
And (as best proof of ardour in its cause

Which ere to-night will have become, too, mine)
Acquaint it with with this plague-sore in its body,
This Prefect and his villanous career?

The princely Synod! All I dared request
Was his dismissal; and they graciously
Consigned his very office to myself-
Myself may heal whate'er's diseased!

For them, they did so!

And good

Since I never felt

How lone a lot, tho' brilliant, I embrace,
Till now that, past retrieval, it is mine-
To live thus, and thus die! Yet, as I leapt
On shore, so home a feeling greeted me
That I could half believe in Djabal's story,
He used to tempt my father with, at Rennes-
And me, too, since the story brought me here—
Of some Count Dreux and ancestor of ours

Who, sick of wandering from Bouillon's war,
Left his old name in Lebanon.

Long days

At least to spend in the Isle ! and, my news known

An hour hence, what if Anael turns on me

The great black eyes I must forget?

Why, fool,

Recall them, then? My business is with Djabal,
Not Anael! Djabal tarries: if I seek him?-
The Isle is brighter than its wont to-day!

ACT II.

Enter DJABAL.

Dja. That a strong man should think himself a God! I-Hakeem? To have wandered thro' the world, Sown falsehood, and thence reaped now scorn, now faith, For my one chant with many a change, my tale Of outrage, and my prayer for vengeance-this Required, forsooth, no mere man's faculty, Nor less than Hakeem's? The persuading Loys To pass probation here; the getting access By Loys to the Prefect; worst of all, The gaining my tribe's confidence by fraud That would disgrace the very Franks,-a few Of Europe's secrets that subdue the flame, The wave,-to ply a simple tribe with these, Took Hakeem ?

And I feel this first to-day!

Does the day break, is the hour imminent

When one deed, when my whole life's deed, my deed Must be accomplished? Hakeem? Why the God? Shout, rather, "Djabal, Youssof's child, thought slain "With his whole race, the Druses' Sheikhs, this Prefect "Endeavoured to extirpate-saved, a child,

"Returns from traversing the world, a man,
"Able to take revenge, lead back the march
"To Lebanon "—so shout, and who gainsays?
But now, because delusion mixed itself

Insensibly with this career, all's changed!

Have I brought Venice to afford us convoy ? "True-but my jugglings wrought that!" Put I heart Into our people where no heart lurked?" Ah, "What cannot an impostor do!"

Not this!

Not do this which I do! Not bid, avaunt
Falsehood! Thou shalt not keep thy hold on me!
-Nor even get a hold on me! 'Tis now-
This day-hour-minute-'tis as here I stand
On the accursed threshold of the Prefect,
That I am found deceiving and deceived!
And now what do I?-Hasten to the few
Deceived, ere they deceive the many—shout,
As I professed, I did believe myself!
Say, Druses, had you seen a butchery—
If Ayoob, Karshook saw- -Maani there
Must tell you how I saw my father sink ;
My mother's arms twine still about my neck;
I hear my brother's shriek, here's yet the scar
Of what was meant for my own death-blow-say,
If you had woke like me, grown year by year
Out of the tumult in a far-off clime,

Would it be wondrous such delusion grew?
I walked the world, asked help at every hand;