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vi Preface
the topics. There is no loss of continuity when the book is read in either of
these ways. To ensure this continuity when you rearrange material, you may
need to move sections rather than entire chapters. However, only large sec-
tions in convenient locations are moved. To help customize a particular order
for any class’s needs, the end of this preface contains a dependency chart, and
each chapter has a “Prerequisites” section that explains what material needs to
be covered before each section in that chapter.
Accessibility to Students
It is not enough for a book to present the right topics in the right order. It is not
even enough for it to be clear and correct when read by an instructor or other
experienced programmer. The material needs to be presented in a way that is
accessible to beginning students. In this introductory textbook, I have endeav-
ored to write in a way that students find clear and friendly. Reports from the
many students who have used the earlier editions of this book confirm that
this style makes the material clear and often even enjoyable to students.
Advanced Topics
Many “advanced topics” are becoming part of a standard CS1 course. Even if
they are not part of a course, it is good to have them available in the text as
enrichment material. This book offers a number of advanced topics that can
be integrated into a course or left as enrichment topics. It gives thorough cov-
erage of C++ templates, inheritance (including virtual functions), exception
handling, and the STL (Standard Template Library). Although this book uses
libraries and teaches students the importance of libraries, it does not require
any nonstandard libraries. This book uses only libraries that are provided with
essentially all C++ implementations.
viii Preface
Dependency Chart
The dependency chart on the next page shows possible orderings of chapters
and subsections. A line joining two boxes means that the upper box must be
covered before the lower box. Any ordering that is consistent with this partial
ordering can be read without loss of continuity. If a box contains a section
number or numbers, then the box refers only to those sections and not to the
entire chapter.
Summary Boxes
Each major point is summarized in a boxed section. These boxed sections are
spread throughout each chapter.
Self-Test Exercises
Each chapter contains numerous Self-Test Exercises at strategic points. Com-
plete answers for all the Self-Test Exercises are given at the end of each chapter.
VideoNotes
VideoNote VideoNotes are designed for teaching students key programming concepts and
techniques. These short step-by-step videos demonstrate how to solve problems
from design through coding. VideoNotes allow for self-paced instruction with
easy navigation including the ability to select, play, rewind, fast-forward, and
stop within each VideoNote exercise.
Chapter 3
Chapter 6
More Flow
I/O Streams
of Control
Chapter 7
Chapter 14 Chapter 10
Arrays
Recursion Classes 1
7.1–7.3
Chapter 7
Chapter 11 *Chapter 16
7.4 Multi-
Classes 2 Exception
Dimensional
11.1–11.2 Handling
Arrays
Chapter 12
Chapter 8 Chapter 11
Separate
Strings and 11.3 Classes &
Compilation
Vectors Arrays
& Namespaces
Chapter 9 Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Pointers and 11.4 Classes &
Pointers and
Dynamic Dynamic
Linked Lists
Arrays Arrays
Chapter 15
Inheritance
Chapter 17
Templates
*Chapter 16 contains
occasional references
to derived classes, Chapter 18
but those references STL
can be omitted
x Preface
Support Material
There is support material available to all users of this book and additional
material available only to qualified instructors.
■ Lab Manual
Contact Us
Your comments, suggestions, questions, and corrections are always welcome.
Please e-mail them to [email protected]
Acknowledgments
Numerous individuals and groups have provided me with suggestions, discus-
sions, and other help in preparing this textbook. Much of the first edition of
this book was written while I was visiting the Computer Science Department
at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The remainder of the writing on the
first edition and the work on subsequent editions was done in the Computer
Science and Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego
(UCSD). I am grateful to these institutions for providing a conducive environ-
ment for teaching this material and writing this book.
Preface xi
xiv
Brief Contents xv
Appendices
1 C++ Keywords 1015
2 Precedence of Operators 1016
3 The ASCII Character Set 1018
4 Some Library Functions 1019
5 Inline Functions 1026
6 Overloading the Array Index
Square Brackets 1027
7 The this Pointer 1029
8 Overloading Operators as Member
Operators 1032
Index 1034
Contents
xvi
Contents xvii
Chapter Summary 32
Answers to Self-Test Exercises 33
Practice Programs 35
Programming Projects 36
Chapter Summary 98
Answers to Self-Test Exercises 98
Practice Programs 103
Programming Projects 105
Mansfield was very happy during this sojourn at Urtas. His work
was hard and the hours long, but he found time for a good deal of
out-door recreation. The agent had provided horses for the party, of
a very different type from the serviceable beasts which they had
procured for their journeys, and Mansfield loved all horses; while in
the estate and the model farm he found a whole world of delight.
The steward, a shrewd and ponderous Dutch Jew, told him when he
heard of his path in life that he was a good farmer spoilt, but
Mansfield was quite content to regard farming as merely a holiday
amusement. It would not bring him nearer to Philippa, which was
what he hoped his secretaryship would do.
Sometimes Mr Hicks would join him in his rides, and generally
on these occasions they went hunting, as the natives called it,
dignifying with this lofty name a little quail- and partridge-shooting,
for Mansfield drew the line at shooting a fox, much to the
disappointment of his attendants. It was on their return from one of
these rides that the American said casually—
“Say, Mr Mansfield, not come to any notion yet what your boss
has got on his mind, have you?”
“On his mind?” repeated Mansfield, in astonishment. “Nothing
more than the work and the political situation, I suppose.”
“I guess that would be about enough for most men,” said Mr
Hicks grimly; “but there’s something else wrong with him, He’s just
pining to make tracks from this place right now.”
“I haven’t noticed it,” said Mansfield, intending the remark as a
snub.
“You bet your life you haven’t, Mr Mansfield. You weren’t meant
to.”
“But what is it?” Mansfield turned to face his tormentor; “and
how do you know anything about it?”
“Well, sir, if you saw a man fretting like a spirited horse to find
himself held fast in one place, and working all he knew to keep
himself from thinking, and all the time taking no proper pleasure in
his work or anything, what would be your opinion of that man?”
“He might be in fear of his life,”—this was intended to be
sarcastic; “or he might”—reluctantly—“be in love.”
“Sir, you have hit the very central point of the bull’s-eye. That’s
what’s wrong with the boss.”
“I don’t see that it concerns you if it is.”
“There’s no lady in Palestine that he might have been on his
way to interview?” continued Mr Hicks imperturbably.
“You mean that Queen—Queen Ernestine of Thracia?” asked
Mansfield blankly. Could it be possible that the moral problem Cyril
had propounded to him before leaving Ludwigsbad had been based
upon Cyril’s own experience?
“That’s my notion,” was the cheerful reply.
“But why wait so long, and go so far round?”
“Because he’s half ashamed of coming back to her anyhow, and
half of being so long about it,” said Mr Hicks concisely.
“I don’t see how you know that.”
“Sir, I was at Bellaviste when King Michael came of age. You bet
I made things hum in New York with my reports of the festivities,
and the other specials had to fly around to get even with me, but
when it came to Count Mortimer’s dismissal the ‘Crier’ fairly took the
cake. The hours I spent hanging around at that Palace, working up
all the ins and outs of the affair from the servants and minor
officials! But it paid, sir, it paid. I wrote up the incident for the paper
in my most elegant style—real high-toned dramatic situations, heart-
rending pathos, and all the rest. I tell you, Mr Mansfield, those
sheets were wet with the scalding tears of the most beautiful women
in America. The Four Hundred was divided; half the ladies took the
Queen’s side, and half the Count’s—and where will you find a
stronger testimony to the fairness with which I had done my work?
There wasn’t a likeness of either of ’em left in a single store from
one end of the Union to the other. And having gone into the case to
that extent, you tell me I’m not even in the ring!”
“By the bye,” said Mansfield, still impenitent, “what miles of
interviews you must be sending off to your paper every day now!”
“I am doing my duty to the ‘Crier,’ sir. I was sent out to keep an
eye on all the proceedings in this transfer of Palestine, in which my
country has as large an interest as yours, and I am informed that all
the Churches in the States are subscribing to the paper since my
descriptive articles on the crisis started to appear. There’s not a half-
starved home missionary or a New Rush school-ma’am out West but
cherishes the hope of seeing Palestine before sending in their checks
at last, and they all calculate to have a share in the country. We are
giving ’em what they want—not a move in this high political game
but they hear of it, and if intelligent interest was allowed any weight,
the territory would be ours. But since it’s not likely that your played-
out old Powers will conclude to appoint America the guardian of
Palestine, as they ought to do if they want the property developed to
any extent, why, I am booming your boss all I know. When the pinch
comes, the great American nation will hurl itself solid on the side of
Cyril de B. Mortimer, and it would not surprise me if he took his
stand under the fostering wings of the American eagle. He knows
who are his friends, and would as lief do a deal with ’em in a friendly
spirit as not. He gives me an item or two most every day for my
paper, and is ready all the time to favour me with his opinions,—not
like some of your fine old crusted diplomats, who wouldn’t open
their mouths to save their lives. Now there was Sir Dugald Haigh, a
real petrified old chunk of British oak, no less. I was in Ethiopia for
the paper at the time of his Mission, close upon fifteen years ago
now, and not a word to be got out of any of ’em. Kept me fooling
around the servants’ quarters, trying to find out what they were
doing, and wasting my valuable time. Well, there’s something
mysterious about these things, any way——”
“Well?” asked Mansfield, for Mr Hicks had paused darkly.
“Well, sir, that Mission was next door to a failure.”
“Perhaps that was not altogether the fault of the Ethiopians,
was it?”
“Mr Mansfield, I guess I’m a white man. You don’t find me
taking sides with niggers against my own colour. No, sir. The fat was
just saved by Mr Stratford, the second in command (he’s Sir Egerton
now and your Ambassador at Czarigrad), who snatched it out of the
fire when we were all making our wills, but Sir Dugald had no hand
in it. And now, instead of prancing around in a coronet and ermine
robes in the House of Lords, that old man is buried up in Scotland
somewhere, cultivating oatmeal and a little literature—that is to say,
he makes himself a general nuisance by writing to the ‘Times’ when
there’s any question on hand connected with foreign politics.”
“Well?” asked Mansfield again.
“Well, sir, the boss is not that sort. He knows where the pay-dirt
lies, as I said, and things will pan out as he means ’em to. If he
concludes that he didn’t treat the lady you mentioned handsomely,
he may go back to her, but if he does, it’ll be because it suits his
book.”
“Look here,” said Mansfield, “if you go on making these vile
insinuations against him any more, you and I shall quarrel.”
“You bet!” was the unsympathetic reply. “No, sir, when a man
finds himself able to hitch his conscience and his convenience to his
waggon together, all that the public can do is to admire his team.
Why it should turn ugly and make nasty remarks on the harness I
don’t know, and you won’t find me doing it.”
Mr Hicks swung himself off his horse as he spoke, with the air of
one who dismissed the subject, for they had ridden up to the house,
but Mansfield had been too much disturbed by the new ideas
suggested to him to be able to banish the conversation from his
mind. When work was over that evening, instead of going out as
usual for a second ride, he hung about the room in which he had
been writing at Cyril’s dictation, alternately rearranging his papers
and trying to place Cyril’s cushions more comfortably.
“Well, Mansfield, what is it?” asked his employer at last.
“I thought—I didn’t know—it occurred to me that you might
want a message taken to—to some other part of the country, as you
are tied here,” stammered Mansfield.
“You are very considerate. A message to whom?”
“To the—to some one you were particularly anxious to see.”
“Come, Mansfield, out with it! Who is this mysterious person?
Has Hicks been pulling your leg?”
“I knew he had made it all up!” burst joyfully from Mansfield.
“All what? I am afraid not. Did he tell you that I was on my way
to ask for an interview with Queen Ernestine, when the pilgrims
interfered with my plans?”
“Yes, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Cultivate a more credulous spirit. What he told you was
perfectly true, and so was his further information that this delay is
almost intolerable to me.”
“I’ll start to-night,” said Mansfield, reproaching himself deeply.
“You can do nothing, unfortunately. I must see the Queen
myself, and approach her in forma pauperis. You know that I treated
her shamefully?”
“No. You can’t make me believe that.”
“But it is true, you see. King Michael behaved to her badly
enough, but it was not that which drove her into exile in Syria. She
would have gone with me cheerfully to poverty and obscurity in
England, but I would not take her. She entreated me on her knees,
but I refused to listen.”
Cyril spoke in a hard, even voice, and when he ceased there
was silence in the room. Mansfield tried in vain to think of something
to say, and each moment made the silence harder to interrupt. “I
would never have believed it if any one else had told me,” he
groaned at last, breaking the spell with a mighty effort.
“I knew that. You and I have taken a fancy to one another,
Mansfield, and I was curious to see what you would say when you
knew how I had treated the woman——”
“Who loved you,” supplied Mansfield, in a tone which was at
once harsh and dull.
“And whom I loved.”
There was a further silence, then Mansfield came hesitatingly
forward.
“I can’t help it,” he said. “I should never have thought I could
speak civilly to a man who had done such a thing as that, but—it’s
you.”
“My dear Mansfield!” The reaction from the strained feeling of
the moment before forced a smile from Cyril. Mansfield sitting in
judgment upon him, and allowing his just severity to be biassed by
his affection for the culprit, was very funny. “You hate the sin, but
you have a sneaking kindness left for the sinner, eh?”
Mansfield laughed uncomfortably, and Cyril shook his head.
“I am afraid I shall have to send you back to England,
Mansfield. You must be deteriorating horribly, if you can condone
such a departure from your creed, even in my case. I suppose I
have corrupted you. What would Lady Phil say?”
“I shall never tell her. It would make her too miserable—about
you, I mean. But, Count——”
“Go on. I will relieve your wounded feelings in any way I can.”
“You were intending to—to try and get the Queen to be
reconciled?”
“Before there was any idea of its being to my advantage? Yes.”
“And you mean to do it still? You think she will forgive you?”
“The woman I used to know would forgive me. But suppose she
is changed? I have no right to expect anything else, and I have only
myself to thank. There is just one thing——”
“Yes?” said Mansfield eagerly.
“Some time ago I was shown a photograph of her, taken since
she left Europe. The woman who showed it to me would have been
the last person in the world to wish to give me any hope, but she did
not see the significance of what I noticed. On the Queen’s arm there
was a bracelet——”
“Which you had given her?”
“Not quite. Prince Mirkovics’s daughter, one of her Hofdamen,
gave it to her once at Christmas. It had one very large diamond in it,
and to the uninitiated that was all. But the diamond was so cut that
by looking at it at a certain angle you could see a portrait in the
setting behind it. The Queen was delighted.”
“And it was your portrait? and she was wearing it still?”
“She was wearing it still. That is my sole ground of hope. But
why I should be pouring out my sorrows to you in this way, like
young Werther or the celebrated Mr Rochester, I don’t know. It isn’t
for a warning, because I can’t by any stretch of imagination conceive
you to be in need of it, and it certainly isn’t because I was yearning
for a confidant. It must have been simply your astonishing cheek in
leading up to the subject. Well, now your idol is broken, and I hope
you are pleased.”
“I can’t think what made me do it,” said Mansfield, awkwardly.
“I know I must seem disgustingly inquisitive to you, but I only
wanted to—to——”
“To annihilate time and space for my benefit, I know. Well, don’t
distress yourself. I could have shut you up at any moment I chose.
As I said, I wished to see whether you would quite turn your back
upon me when you knew the whole truth.”
“I could never do that, whatever happened. Try me.”
“I believe you. And now, if you have probed into my past history
sufficiently, perhaps you would not mind going round to the
steward’s and seeing what he has to say about the mule-litter that
Hicks mentioned this morning?”
Mr Hicks himself entered the room as Mansfield stumbled out of
it, and cast a glance of quizzical reproof at Cyril as he sat down on
the divan.
“I’d lay my last red cent, Count, that you’ve been tormenting
that unhappy young man again. The way you work upon his finer
feelings is the cruellest thing I ever saw. You play upon him like an
organ.”
“Then why does he lend himself to it?” asked Cyril. “It’s not in
human nature to neglect such an opportunity. The luckless youth is
provokingly sane otherwise. My brother values his opinion, my
nephew and niece look up to him devoutly; I believe he even fancies
himself a little as a man of the world. Why should he take it into his
head to conceive such an adoration for me that he becomes like a
child in my hands? I can make him blush and stammer like a girl,
and for no reason whatever.”
“He don’t get much show out of his adoration, sir, any way.”
“No, indeed; and yet he keeps it up. Why does a woman
torment her lovers, Hicks? To show her power, I suppose—not
necessarily because she delights in seeing them miserable. It gives
me a kind of pleasure, no doubt, to know that I can raise the
unfortunate Mansfield from despair to the seventh heaven by a
word, and plunge him down into the depths again by another, and
therefore I do it.”
“Guess you are keeping your hand in, Count, against the time
they fix you up with a whole territory to practise your fascinations
upon.”
“Don’t dabble in prophecy, Hicks, unless you want to postpone
that desirable time until the Greek Kalends. So poor Mansfield is
tortured to make a pastime for me, is he? Well, it will be all made up
to him. I intend him to marry my niece, and she takes after her
father, and could not hurt any one’s feelings in cold blood to save
her life.”
“Is that so, Count? Well, Mr Mansfield will have earned his
happiness,” said Mr Hicks drily. “But I guess you know some folks
have figured it out that the young lady is to marry the King of
Thracia? Old Prince Mirkovics is flying round putting the kingdom in
order, and whispering the secret to most every one he meets. You
are not in it, then?”
“Scarcely. For one thing, I don’t think my niece would come into
the scheme, and I am not so foolish as to undertake to marry her to
any one against her will. And then, you see, I am retained, as I said,
in Mansfield’s behalf.”
CHAPTER XIV.
NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE.
The sojourn at Urtas, which had proved so irksome to Cyril, was not
doomed to last much longer. As soon as the watchful Mr Hicks could
be induced, against his better judgment, to allow him to travel, he
was on the road again, riding whenever it was possible. When the
country was so rough as to render horse exercise unsafe for a rider
able only to use one hand, he was content to be conveyed
ignominiously in the mule-litter. In his train followed Mr Hicks, acting
both as surgeon and chronicler. Cyril was well pleased to keep the
American supplied with exclusive information on points of general
interest, since he found him prepared to exercise a wise discretion
with regard to matters of real importance. Mr Hicks asked no more
favourable treatment than this. He had been sent out to write up the
Palestine question for the ‘Crier,’ and how could he do so better than
by encamping continually, so to speak, close to the fountainhead of
information on the subject? His retinue, added to Cyril’s, made an
imposing cavalcade, and the local governors and petty sheikhs
honoured with a visit were duly impressed.
The minds of these functionaries were found to be much
perturbed, owing to the reports which had been spread as to the
intentions of the new government, and it was sometimes a long
business to reassure them. Curiously enough, the worst and most
malevolent of the mischief-makers were the Jews whose families had
been settled in the larger towns for two or more generations.
Supported in idleness by means of the Chalukah—a kind of voluntary
tax which the Jews throughout the world imposed on themselves for
the benefit of their poor brethren in Palestine—these men, quite
naturally, were fully satisfied with the present. The prospect of a
future in which their pretensions would be examined and their
privileges curtailed was not enticing. Hard work in stubborn soil,
even on land which was their own, would be a poor exchange for
ease and idleness, and these degenerate Israelites did their best to
avert it by inciting the Moslems to resist the change of rule. Calumny
after calumny was brought forward by the local authorities, and
refuted by Cyril, who made his way to the hardest hearts by dint of a
judicious combination of bonhomie and bakhshish. It is true that the
natives, having seen the colour of his money, and heard of the
liberty and other blessings in store for them, chose to ignore the
existence of the Jewish State altogether. However, since they
accepted all Cyril’s suggestions, and agreed to pay their taxes to the
officials whom he should appoint, their belief that England was
about to take possession of the country, and had sent him in
advance as her representative, mattered little.
Owing to the singular success of his labours, Count Mortimer’s
journey through the country bore the aspect of a triumphal progress.
When he arrived at length at Damascus, there remained only the
Beni Ismail and their Desert Queen to be placated before he could
announce that the whole Moslem population of Palestine was well
affected towards the new rule. To gain the goodwill of the Christians
was a hopeless task, he knew; but at this moment they were all fully
occupied in intriguing, with the support of the consuls of the Powers
who protected them respectively, for the aggrandisement of their
property or prestige at the expense of rival sects. Even Bishop
Philaret had forgotten the iniquities of the Jews for a time, and was
so hotly engaged in a controversy with the Latins over a piece of
ground some seven feet square, in which a ruined cistern (which he
imagined to be a tomb) had been discovered, that he had no leisure
to waste in attacking Cyril.
As the travellers approached Damascus, it seemed to Mansfield
and Mr Hicks that their pace was faster than it had been at first.
Cyril had become more impatient of delay, less tolerant of any
proposal to digress from the appointed route for the purpose of
visiting some object of interest. They could see that his spirits were
variable, in spite of the rigid self-control which he exercised, and his
physician discovered that for the first time in his life he slept badly
night after night. When they reached the city, however, and had
taken up their quarters in the house of an Oriental cousin of the
Chevalier’s, he was calm and cheerful again. On the first evening of
their stay he was the life of the party, which included a cheerful
young Roumi aide-de-camp of the Vali or Governor-General, who
was the bearer of his superior’s respects and compliments. When the
story of their journeys had been told, Mahmud Fadil Bey had a good
deal to say about the one task that remained to be completed.
“We are all anxious to see how you get on with the Beni Ismail,”
he said, in his excellent French. “They have been a thorn in our side
for many a day, and we shall not be sorry to turn them over to you.”
“What is their peculiar wickedness?” asked Cyril.
Mahmud Fadil shrugged his shoulders. “They are simply an Arab
tribe who inhabit a tract of desert of which almost nothing is known,
and who make themselves rather more disagreeable than the rest.
Of course they have never paid any tribute—though our treasury
officials devised a pleasing fiction that the arrears had been
accumulating for centuries. It was practically a case of our paying
tribute to them. When the usual presents were not forthcoming, it
was not long before we heard that the Beni Ismail had robbed a
caravan or two. It was no use sending soldiers after them, for they
knew the desert and we did not, so we lay low and said nothing.” He
glanced smilingly at Mr Hicks, as he made the quotation in English.
“Two years ago there was a famine, and I suppose caravans became
scarce. At any rate, the Beni Ismail were foolish enough to wander
close to the city in search of food, and the Vali saw his opportunity.
He drew a cordon of troops round their encampment, and arrested
them for non-payment of their taxes. We had very nearly the whole
tribe in our hands, and it was intended to deport them to some
other part of the country, where they would be absolutely at the
mercy of the Government. But, somehow or other, they managed to
pay up, though I will do the Vali the justice to say that he did not
diminish the sum he had named by a single piastre. This tardy virtue
was all very well; but he had no intention of leaving the tribe at
liberty to begin their old game again, and the preparations for
removing them were going forward, when—of all people—the
Pannonian Ambassador at Czarigrad took up the affair. It was said
that the Empress of Pannonia was interesting herself in the
creatures, though why she should I don’t know, but we were obliged
to let them go, on the understanding that the taxes should be paid
in future, and the attacks on caravans cease. Wonderful to relate,
they have kept their promise, thanks, I suppose, to their Queen,
whom no one had ever heard of before they got into trouble. It
seems that she holds her Court at some spot in the desert that the
Arabs call Sitt Zeynab. She had been wise enough to keep out of our
reach, and we restored her subjects to her.”
“Do you mean that the lady’s existence had been absolutely
unsuspected?” asked Cyril.
“Absolutely. It was supposed that the tribe were ashamed to
confess they were ruled by a woman, or perhaps afraid that we
should make a bold dash and secure her as a hostage. I believe the
idea of appealing to the Empress was hers, though it is a mystery
why she should hit upon Pannonia as the friend in need.”
“But has no one from Damascus ever seen her?”
“No one. Moreover, I have questioned different members of the
tribe, when they came to bring their tribute, since that time, and I
think very few of them have seen her either. I have been assured by
one man that she is ineffably old and practises magic, and by the
next that she is a perfect houri in youth and beauty. The most
credible thing I have heard is that she is always wrapped in a white
sheet, like the Druse ladies, that she is attended only by women,
and that no one has ever seen her face. The tribe speak of her as
the Great Princess, and her word is law. She is a splendid horse-
woman, and she lives in a haunted palace, and both these things
impress them very much.”
“Is that so, sir?” said Mr Hicks. “And why do you expect this
interesting female to come to blows with his Excellency, if I may
ask?”
Mahmud Fadil laughed. “I am afraid we are to blame for that.
When the last tribute came in, the Vali told the messengers that they
might think themselves independent if they liked, but let them wait
until the Prince of the Jews came, and see what all the Emperors in
Europe could do for them then! They asked innumerable questions,
and got all the information of the same kind we could give them,
and retired to tell their Princess, saying that she would know what to
do.”
“I think this will involve a visit to her Highness as soon as we
have had two or three days’ rest and a look at Lebanon,” said Cyril.
“I hardly think you will get as far as Sitt Zeynab,” laughed the
aide-de-camp. “No one has ever yet reached it from Damascus,
though many have tried, some out of curiosity, and some for other
reasons. The Beni Ismail alone among the Arabs know the way, and
they will never take any one there. Once or twice we have caught
one of the tribe off his guard, and forced him to take charge of an
exploring party, but the explorers have always returned unsuccessful
and without their guide, after wandering very uncomfortably in the
desert for a few days. It is difficult to see how the place can be
reached. We have offered a reward to the Beni Ayub, a rival tribe, if
they will find out the way to it, but whenever the Beni Ismail
discover trespassers in their country, they cut their trespassing
severely short. The town does not seem to have been visited by any
traveller, and the other Arabs cannot even say how long the Queen
has reigned.”
“Decidedly we must face these perils and make a dash for Sitt
Zeynab,” repeated Cyril; “but I intend to spend to-morrow in
exploring Anti-Lebanon.”