Ragh. [interposing.] Each ravage for himself! Booty enough! On Druses! Be there found Blood and a heap behind us; with us, Djabal

Turned Hakeem; and before us, Lebanon!

Yields the porch? Spare not! There his minions dragged

Thy daughter, Karshook, to the Prefect's couch!
Ayoob! Thy son, to soothe the Prefect's pride,
Bent o'er that task, the death-sweat on his brow,
Carving the spice-tree's heart in scroll-work there!
Onward in Djabal's name!

As the tumult is at height, enter KHALIL. A pause and silence.

Kha.

Djabal hath summoned you?

A portion in to-day's event?

Was it for this,

Deserve you thus
What, here-

When most behoves your feet fall soft, your eyes
Sink low, your tongues lie still,—at Djabal's side,
Close in his very hearing, who, perchance,

Assumes e'en now God Hakeem's dreaded shape,—
Dispute you for these gauds ?

Ay.

How say'st thou, Khalil ?

Doubtless our Master prompts thee! Take the fringe, Old Karshook! I supposed it was a day . . .

Kha. For pillage?

Kar.

Hearken, Khalil! Never spoke

A boy so like a song-bird; we avouch thee
Prettiest of all our Master's instruments

Except thy bright twin-sister-thou and Anael

Challenge his prime regard: but we may crave (Such nothings as we be) a portion too

Of Djabal's favor; in him we believed,

His bound ourselves, him moon by moon obeyed,
Kept silence till this daybreak-so may claim
Reward: who grudges me my claim?

Must I, the delegate of Djabal, draw

His wrath on you, the day of our Return?

Other Druses. Wrench from their grasp the fringe! Hound! must the earth

Vomit her plagues on us thro' thee?—and thee?

Plague me not, Khalil, for their fault!

Oh, shame!

Kha.
Thus breaks to-day on you, the mystic tribe
Who, flying the approach of Osman, bore
Our faith, a merest spark, from Syria's Ridge
Its birth-place, hither! Let the sea divide
These hunters from their prey, you said, and safe
In this dim islet's virgin solitude

Tend we our faith, the spark, till happier time
Fan it to fire; till Hakeem rise again,
According to his word that, in the flesh
Which faded on Mokattam ages since,
He, at our extreme need, would interpose,
And, reinstating all in power and bliss,

Lead us himself to Lebanon once more.
Was 't not thus you departed years ago,
Ere I was born?

Druses.

'Twas even thus, years ago.

Kha. And did you call—(according to old laws
Which bid us, lest the Sacred grow Prophane,
Assimilate ourselves in outward rites

With strangers fortune makes our lords, and live
As Christian with the Christian, Jew with Jew,
Druse only with the Druses)-did you call
Or no, to stand 'twixt you and Osman's rage,
(Mad to pursue e'en hither thro' the sea
The remnant of your tribe) a race self-vowed
To endless warfare with his hordes and him,
The White-cross Knights of the adjacent Isle ?

Kar. And why else rend we down, wrench up, raze out? These Knights of Rhodes we thus solicited

For help, bestowed on us a fiercer pest

Than aught we fled their Prefect; who began

His promised mere paternal governance,

By a prompt massacre of all our Sheikhs

Able to thwart the Order in its scheme

Of crushing, with our nationalities,

Each chance of our return, and taming us

Bond slaves to Rhodes for ever-all, he thinks

To end by this day's treason.

Kha.

Say I not?

You, fitted to the Order's purposes,

Your Sheikhs cut off, your very garb proscribed,

Must yet receive one degradation more;

The Knights at last throw off the mask-transfer, As tributary now, and appanage,

This islet they are but protectors of,

To their own ever-craving lord, the Church,
Which licenses all crimes that pay it thus-
You, from their Prefect, were to be consigned
Pursuant to I know not what vile pact,
To the Knights' Patriarch, ardent to outvie
His predecessor in all wickedness;
When suddenly rose Djabal in the midst,
Djabal, the man, in semblance, but our God
Confessed by signs and portents. Ye saw fire
Bicker round Djabal, heard strange music flit
Bird-like about his brow?

Druses.

We saw we heard!

Djabal is Hakeem, the incarnate Dread,

The phantasm Khalif, King of Prodigies!

Kha. And as he said hath not our Khalif done, And so disposed events (from land to land

Passing invisibly) that when, this morn,

The pact of villany complete, there comes
This Patriarch's Nuncio with this Master's Prefect
Their treason to consummate,-each will face
For a crouching handful, an uplifted nation;
For simulated Christians, confessed Druses;
And, for slaves past hope of the Mother-mount,
Freedmen returning there 'neath Venice' flag;
That Venice, which, the Hospitallers' foe,

Grants us from Candia escort home at price

Of our relinquished isle-Rhodes counts her own—
Venice, whose promised argosies should stand

Toward the harbour: is it now that you, and you,
And
you, selected from the rest to bear

The burthen of the Khalif's secret, further
To-day's event, entitled by your wrongs,
And witness in the Prefect's hall his fate-

That you dare clutch these gauds? Ay, drop them!
Kar.

Most true, all this; and yet, may one dare hint,
Thou art the youngest of us?-tho' employed
Abundantly as Djabal's confidant,

Transmitter of his mandates, even now:
Much less, whene'er beside him Anael graces
The cedar throne, his Queen-bride, art thou like
To occupy its lowest step that day!

Now, Khalil, wert thou checked as thou aspirest,
Forbidden such or such an honour,—say,
Would silence serve so amply?

Kha.

Karshook thinks

I covet honours? Well, nor idly thinks!

I have demanded of them all

Honours?

True,

Judge yourselves!

Turn-thus: 'tis in the alcove at the back

Of yonder columned porch, whose entrance now
The veil hides, that our Prefect holds his state;