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The Talisman

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #1377 · 761,539 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Talisman

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: July 1, 1998 [eBook #1377]
                Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALISMAN ***

THE TALISMAN

By Sir Walter Scott




INTRODUCTION TO THE TALISMAN.

The “Betrothed” did not greatly please one or two friends, who thought
that it did not well correspond to the general title of “The Crusaders.”
 They urged, therefore, that, without direct allusion to the manners of
the Eastern tribes, and to the romantic conflicts of the period, the
title of a “Tale of the Crusaders” would resemble the playbill, which
is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of
the Prince of Denmark being left out. On the other hand, I felt the
difficulty of giving a vivid picture of a part of the world with which
I was almost totally unacquainted, unless by early recollections of
the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; and not only did I labour under the
incapacity of ignorance--in which, as far as regards Eastern manners, I
was as thickly wrapped as an Egyptian in his fog--but my contemporaries
were, many of them, as much enlightened upon the subject as if they had
been inhabitants of the favoured land of Goshen. The love of travelling
had pervaded all ranks, and carried the subjects of Britain into all
quarters of the world. Greece, so attractive by its remains of art, by
its struggles for freedom against a Mohammedan tyrant, by its very name,
where every fountain had its classical legend--Palestine, endeared
to the imagination by yet more sacred remembrances--had been of late
surveyed by British eyes, and described by recent travellers. Had I,
therefore, attempted the difficult task of substituting manners of my
own invention, instead of the genuine costume of the East, almost every
traveller I met who had extended his route beyond what was anciently
called “The Grand Tour,” had acquired a right, by ocular inspection, to
chastise me for my presumption. Every member of the Travellers' Club who
could pretend to have thrown his shoe over Edom was, by having done so,
constituted my lawful critic and corrector. It occurred, therefore,
that where the author of Anastasius, as well as he of Hadji Baba, had
described the manners and vices of the Eastern nations, not only with
fidelity, but with the humour of Le Sage and the ludicrous power of
Fielding himself, one who was a perfect stranger to the subject must
necessarily produce an unfavourable contrast. The Poet Laureate also,
in the charming tale of “Thalaba,” had shown how extensive might be
the researches of a person of acquirements and talent, by dint of
investigation alone, into the ancient doctrines, history, and manners of
the Eastern countries, in which we are probably to look for the cradle
of mankind; Moore, in his “Lalla Rookh,” had successfully trod the
same path; in which, too, Byron, joining ocular experience to extensive
reading, had written some of his most attractive poems. In a word, the
Eastern themes had been already so successfully handled by those who
were acknowledged to be masters of their craft, that I was diffident of
making the attempt.

These were powerful objections; nor did they lose force when they
became the subject of anxious reflection, although they did not finally
prevail. The arguments on the other side were, that though I had no hope
of rivalling the contemporaries whom I have mentioned, yet it occurred
to me as possible to acquit myself of the task I was engaged in without
entering into competition with them.

The period relating more immediately to the Crusades which I at last
fixed upon was that at which the warlike character of Richard I., wild
and generous, a pattern of chivalry, with all its extravagant virtues,
and its no less absurd errors, was opposed to that of Saladin, in which
the Christian and English monarch showed all the cruelty and violence
of an Eastern sultan, and Saladin, on the other hand, displayed the deep
policy and prudence of a European sovereign, whilst each contended
which should excel the other in the knightly qualities of bravery and
generosity. This singular contrast afforded, as the author conceived,
materials for a work of fiction possessing peculiar interest. One of the
inferior characters introduced was a supposed relation of Richard Coeur
de Lion--a violation of the truth of history which gave offence to Mr.
Mills, the author of the “History of Chivalry and the Crusades,” who was
not, it may be presumed, aware that romantic fiction naturally includes
the power of such invention, which is indeed one of the requisites of
the art.

Prince David of Scotland, who was actually in the host, and was the hero
of some very romantic adventures on his way home, was also pressed into
my service, and constitutes one of my DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

It is true I had already brought upon the field him of the lion heart.
But it was in a more private capacity than he was here to be exhibited
in the Talisman--then as a disguised knight, now in the avowed character
of a conquering monarch; so that I doubted not a name so dear to
Englishmen as that of King Richard I. might contribute to their
amusement for more than once.

I had access to all which antiquity believed, whether of reality or
fable, on the subject of that magnificent warrior, who was the proudest
boast of Europe and their chivalry, and with whose dreadful name the
Saracens, according to a historian of their own country, were wont to
rebuke their startled horses. “Do you think,” said they, “that King
Richard is on the track, that you stray so wildly from it?” The most
curious register of the history of King Richard is an ancient romance,
translated originally from the Norman; and at first certainly having a
pretence to be termed a work of chivalry, but latterly becoming stuffed
with the most astonishing and monstrous fables. There is perhaps no
metrical romance upon record where, along with curious and genuine
history, are mingled more absurd and exaggerated incidents. We have
placed in the Appendix to this Introduction the passage of the romance
in which Richard figures as an ogre, or literal cannibal.

A principal incident in the story is that from which the title is
derived. Of all people who ever lived, the Persians were perhaps most
remarkable for their unshaken credulity in amulets, spells, periapts,
and similar charms, framed, it was said, under the influence of
particular planets, and bestowing high medical powers, as well as the
means of advancing men's fortunes in various manners. A story of this
kind, relating to a Crusader of eminence, is often told in the west of
Scotland, and the relic alluded to is still in existence, and even yet
held in veneration.

Sir Simon Lockhart of Lee and Gartland made a considerable figure in the
reigns of Robert the Bruce and of his son David. He was one of the chief
of that band of Scottish chivalry who accompanied James, the Good Lord
Douglas, on his expedition to the Holy Land with the heart of King
Robert Bruce. Douglas, impatient to get at the Saracens, entered into
war with those of Spain, and was killed there. Lockhart proceeded to the
Holy Land with such Scottish knights as had escaped the fate of their
leader and assisted for some time in the wars against the Saracens.

The following adventure is said by tradition to have befallen him:--

He made prisoner in battle an Emir of considerable wealth and
consequence. The aged mother of the captive came to the Christian camp,
to redeem her son from his state of captivity. Lockhart is said to have
fixed the price at which his prisoner should ransom himself; and the
lady, pulling out a large embroidered purse, proceeded to tell down the
ransom, like a mother who pays little respect to gold in comparison of
her son's liberty. In this operation, a pebble inserted in a coin, some
say of the Lower Empire, fell out of the purse, and the Saracen matron
testified so much haste to recover it as gave the Scottish knight a
high idea of its value, when compared with gold or silver. “I will not
consent,” he said, “to grant your son's liberty, unless that amulet be
added to his ransom.” The lady not only consented to this, but explained
to Sir Simon Lockhart the mode in which the talisman was to be used,
and the uses to which it might be put. The water in which it was dipped
operated as a styptic, as a febrifuge, and possessed other properties as
a medical talisman.

Sir Simon Lockhart, after much experience of the wonders which it
wrought, brought it to his own country, and left it to his heirs, by
whom, and by Clydesdale in general, it was, and is still, distinguished
by the name of the Lee-penny, from the name of his native seat of Lee.

The most remarkable part of its history, perhaps, was that it so
especially escaped condemnation when the Church of Scotland chose to
impeach many other cures which savoured of the miraculous, as occasioned
by sorcery, and censured the appeal to them, “excepting only that to
the amulet, called the Lee-penny, to which it had pleased God to annex
certain healing virtues which the Church did not presume to condemn.” It
still, as has been said, exists, and its powers are sometimes resorted
to. Of late, they have been chiefly restricted to the cure of persons
bitten by mad dogs; and as the illness in such cases frequently arises
from imagination, there can be no reason for doubting that water which
has been poured on the Lee-penny furnishes a congenial cure.

Such is the tradition concerning the talisman, which the author has
taken the liberty to vary in applying it to his own purposes.

Considerable liberties have also been taken with the truth of history,
both with respect to Conrade of Montserrat's life, as well as his death.
That Conrade, however, was reckoned the enemy of Richard is agreed both
in history and romance. The general opinion of the terms upon which they
stood may be guessed from the proposal of the Saracens that the Marquis
of Montserrat should be invested with certain parts of Syria, which they
were to yield to the Christians. Richard, according to the romance which
bears his name, “could no longer repress his fury. The Marquis he said,
was a traitor, who had robbed the Knights Hospitallers of sixty thousand
pounds, the present of his father Henry; that he was a renegade, whose
treachery had occasioned the loss of Acre; and he concluded by a solemn
oath, that he would cause him to be drawn to pieces by wild horses, if
he should ever venture to pollute the Christian camp by his presence.
Philip attempted to intercede in favour of the Marquis, and throwing
down his glove, offered to become a pledge for his fidelity to the
Christians; but his offer was rejected, and he was obliged to give way
to Richard's impetuosity.”--HISTORY OF CHIVALRY.

Conrade of Montserrat makes a considerable figure in those wars, and was
at length put to death by one of the followers of the Scheik, or Old Man
of the Mountain; nor did Richard remain free of the suspicion of having
instigated his death.

It may be said, in general, that most of the incidents introduced in
the following tale are fictitious, and that reality, where it exists, is
only retained in the characters of the piece.

ABBOTSFORD, 1st July, 1832




APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

While warring in the Holy Land, Richard was seized with an ague.

The best leeches of the camp were unable to effect the cure of the
King's disease; but the prayers of the army were more successful. He
became convalescent, and the first symptom of his recovery was a violent
longing for pork. But pork was not likely to be plentiful in a country
whose inhabitants had an abhorrence for swine's flesh; and

     “Though his men should be hanged,
     They ne might, in that countrey,
     For gold, ne silver, ne no money,
     No pork find, take, ne get,
     That King Richard might aught of eat.
     An old knight with Richard biding,
     When he heard of that tiding,
     That the king's wants were swyche,
     To the steward he spake privyliche--
     “Our lord the king sore is sick, I wis,
     After porck he alonged is;
     Ye may none find to selle;
     No man be hardy him so to telle!
     If he did he might die.
     Now behoves to done as I shall say,
     Tho' he wete nought of that.
     Take a Saracen, young and fat;
     In haste let the thief be slain,
     Opened, and his skin off flayn;
     And sodden full hastily,
     With powder and with spicery,
     And with saffron of good colour.
     When the king feels thereof savour,
     Out of ague if he be went,
     He shall have thereto good talent.
     When he has a good taste,
     And eaten well a good repast,
     And supped of the BREWIS [Broth] a sup,
     Slept after and swet a drop,
     Through Goddis help and my counsail,
     Soon he shall be fresh and hail.'
     The sooth to say, at wordes few,
     Slain and sodden was the heathen shrew.
     Before the king it was forth brought:
     Quod his men, 'Lord, we have pork sought;
     Eates and sups of the brewis SOOTE,[Sweet]
     Thorough grace of God it shall be your boot.'
     Before King Richard carff a knight,
     He ate faster than he carve might.
     The king ate the flesh and GNEW [Gnawed] the bones,
     And drank well after for the nonce.
     And when he had eaten enough,
     His folk hem turned away, and LOUGH.[Laughed]
     He lay still and drew in his arm;
     His chamberlain him wrapped warm.
     He lay and slept, and swet a stound,
     And became whole and sound.
     King Richard clad him and arose,
     And walked abouten in the close.”

An attack of the Saracens was repelled by Richard in person, the
consequence of which is told in the following lines:--

     “When King Richard had rested a whyle,
     A knight his arms 'gan unlace,
     Him to comfort and solace.
     Him was brought a sop in wine.
     'The head of that ilke swine,
     That I of ate!' (the cook he bade,)
     'For feeble I am, and faint and mad.
     Of mine evil now I am fear;
     Serve me therewith at my soupere!'
     Quod the cook, 'That head I ne have.'
     Then said the king, 'So God me save,
     But I see the head of that swine,
     For sooth, thou shalt lesen thine!'
     The cook saw none other might be;
     He fet the head and let him see.
     He fell on knees, and made a cry--
     'Lo, here the head!  my Lord, mercy!'”

The cook had certainly some reason to fear that his master would be
struck with horror at the recollection of the dreadful banquet to which
he owed his recovery; but his fears were soon dissipated.

     “The swarte vis [Black face] when the king seeth,
     His black beard and white teeth,
     How his lippes grinned wide,
     'What devil is this?' the king cried,
     And 'gan to laugh as he were wode.
     'What!  is Saracen's flesh thus good?
     That never erst I nought wist!
     By God's death and his uprist,
     Shall we never die for default,
     While we may in any assault,
     Slee Saracens, the flesh may take,
     And seethen and roasten and do hem bake,
     [And] Gnawen her flesh to the bones!
     Now I have it proved once,
     For hunger ere I be wo,
     I and my folk shall eat mo!”'

The besieged now offered to surrender, upon conditions of safety to the
inhabitants; while all the public treasure, military machines, and arms
were delivered to the victors, together with the further ransom of
one hundred thousand bezants. After this capitulation, the following
extraordinary scene took place. We shall give it in the words of the
humorous and amiable George Ellis, the collector and the editor of these
Romances:--

“Though the garrison had faithfully performed the other articles of
their contract, they were unable to restore the cross, which was not
in their possession, and were therefore treated by the Christians
with great cruelty. Daily reports of their sufferings were carried to
Saladin; and as many of them were persons of the highest distinction,
that monarch, at the solicitation of their friends, dispatched an
embassy to King Richard with magnificent presents, which he offered
for the ransom of the captives. The ambassadors were persons the most
respectable from their age, their rank, and their eloquence. They
delivered their message in terms of the utmost humility; and without
arraigning the justice of the conqueror in his severe treatment of their
countrymen, only solicited a period to that severity, laying at his feet
the treasures with which they were entrusted, and pledging themselves
and their master for the payment of any further sums which he might
demand as the price of mercy.

     “King Richard spake with wordes mild.
     'The gold to take, God me shield!
     Among you partes [Divide] every charge.
     I brought in shippes and in barge,
     More gold and silver with me,
     Than has your lord, and swilke three.
     To his treasure have I no need!
     But for my love I you bid,
     To meat with me that ye dwell;
     And afterward I shall you tell.
     Thorough counsel I shall you answer,
     What BODE [Message] ye shall to your lord bear.

“The invitation was gratefully accepted. Richard, in the meantime, gave
secret orders to his marshal that he should repair to the prison,
select a certain number of the most distinguished captives, and, after
carefully noting their names on a roll of parchment, cause their heads
to be instantly struck off; that these heads should be delivered to the
cook, with instructions to clear away the hair, and, after boiling
them in a cauldron, to distribute them on several platters, one to
each guest, observing to fasten on the forehead of each the piece of
parchment expressing the name and family of the victim.

     “'An hot head bring me beforn,
     As I were well apayed withall,
     Eat thereof fast I shall;
     As it were a tender chick,
     To see how the others will like.'

“This horrible order was punctually executed. At noon the guests were
summoned to wash by the music of the waits. The king took his seat
attended by the principal officers of his court, at the high table, and
the rest of the company were marshalled at a long table below him.
On the cloth were placed portions of salt at the usual distances, but
neither bread, wine, nor water. The ambassadors, rather surprised at
this omission, but still free from apprehension, awaited in silence
the arrival of the dinner, which was announced by the sound of pipes,
trumpets, and tabours; and beheld, with horror and dismay, the unnatural
banquet introduced by the steward and his officers. Yet their sentiments
of disgust and abhorrence, and even their fears, were for a time
suspended by their curiosity. Their eyes were fixed on the king, who,
without the slightest change of countenance, swallowed the morsels as
fast as they could be supplied by the knight who carved them.

     “Every man then poked other;
     They said, 'This is the devil's brother,
     That slays our men, and thus hem eats!'

“Their attention was then involuntarily fixed on the smoking heads
before them. They traced in the swollen and distorted features the
resemblance of a friend or near relation, and received from the
fatal scroll which accompanied each dish the sad assurance that this
resemblance was not imaginary. They sat in torpid silence, anticipating
their own fate in that of their countrymen; while their ferocious
entertainer, with fury in his eyes, but with courtesy on his lips,
insulted them by frequent invitations to merriment. At length this first
course was removed, and its place supplied by venison, cranes, and other
dainties, accompanied by the richest wines. The king then apologized to
them for what had passed, which he attributed to his ignorance of their
taste; and assured them of his religious respect for their characters as
ambassadors, and of his readiness to grant them a safe-conduct for their
return. This boon was all that they now wished to claim; and

     “King Richard spake to an old man,
     'Wendes home to your Soudan!
     His melancholy that ye abate;
     And sayes that ye came too late.
     Too slowly was your time y-guessed;
     Ere ye came, the flesh was dressed,
     That men shoulden serve with me,
     Thus at noon, and my meynie.
     Say him, it shall him nought avail,
     Though he for-bar us our vitail,
     Bread, wine, fish, flesh, salmon, and conger;
     Of us none shall die with hunger,
     While we may wenden to fight,
     And slay the Saracens downright,
     Wash the flesh, and roast the head.
     With 0 [One] Saracen I may well feed
     Well a nine or a ten
     Of my good Christian men.
     King Richard shall warrant,
     There is no flesh so nourissant
     Unto an English man,
     Partridge, plover, heron, ne swan,
     Cow ne ox, sheep ne swine,
     As the head of a Sarazyn.
     There he is fat, and thereto tender,
     And my men be lean and slender.
     While any Saracen quick be,
     Livand now in this Syrie,
     For meat will we nothing care.
     Abouten fast we shall rare,
     And every day we shall eat
     All as many as we may get.
     To England will we nought gon,
     Till they be eaten every one.'”


      ELLIS'S SPECIMENS OF EARLY ENGLISH METRICEL ROMANCES.

The reader may be curious to know owing to what circumstances so
extraordinary an invention as that which imputed cannibalism to the King
of England should have found its way into his history. Mr. James, to
whom we owe so much that is curious, seems to have traced the origin of
this extraordinary rumour.

“With the army of the cross also was a multitude of men,” the same
author declares, “who made it a profession to be without money. They
walked barefoot, carried no arms, and even preceded the beasts of burden
in their march, living upon roots and herbs, and presenting a spectacle
both disgusting and pitiable.

“A Norman, who, according to all accounts, was of noble birth, but who,
having lost his horse, continued to follow as a foot soldier, took
the strange resolution of putting himself at the head of this race
of vagabonds, who willingly received him as their king. Amongst the
Saracens these men became well known under the name of THAFURS (which
Guibert translates TRUDENTES), and were beheld with great horror
from the general persuasion that they fed on the dead bodies of their
enemies; a report which was occasionally justified, and which the king
of the Thafurs took care to encourage. This respectable monarch was
frequently in the habit of stopping his followers, one by one, in a
narrow defile, and of causing them to be searched carefully, lest the
possession of the least sum of money should render them unworthy of the
name of his subjects. If even two sous were found upon any one, he
was instantly expelled the society of his tribe, the king bidding him
contemptuously buy arms and fight.

“This troop, so far from being cumbersome to the army, was infinitely
serviceable, carrying burdens, bringing in forage, provisions, and
tribute; working the machines in the sieges; and, above all, spreading
consternation among the Turks, who feared death from the lances of the
knights less than that further consummation they heard of under the
teeth of the Thafurs.” [James's “History of Chivalry.”]

It is easy to conceive that an ignorant minstrel, finding the taste and
ferocity of the Thafurs commemorated in the historical accounts of the
Holy Wars, has ascribed their practices and propensities to the Monarch
of England, whose ferocity was considered as an object of exaggeration
as legitimate as his valour.

ABBOTSFORD, 1st July, 1832.





TALES OF THE CRUSADERS. TALE II.--THE TALISMAN.




CHAPTER I.

     They, too, retired
     To the wilderness, but 'twas with arms.
         PARADISE REGAINED.

The burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in
the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant
northern home and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was
pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the
Dead Sea, or, as it is called, the Lake Asphaltites, where the waves of
the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no
discharge of waters.

The warlike pilgrim had toiled among cliffs and precipices during the
earlier part of the morning. More lately, issuing from those rocky
and dangerous defiles, he had entered upon that great plain, where
the accursed cities provoked, in ancient days, the direct and dreadful
vengeance of the Omnipotent.

The toil, the thirst, the dangers of the way, were forgotten, as the
traveller recalled the fearful catastrophe which had converted into an
arid and dismal wilderness the fair and fertile valley of Siddim, once
well watered, even as the Garden of the Lord, now a parched and blighted
waste, condemned to eternal sterility.

Crossing himself, as he viewed the dark mass of rolling waters, in
colour as in duality unlike those of any other lake, the traveller
shuddered as he remembered that beneath these sluggish waves lay the
once proud cities of the plain, whose grave was dug by the thunder of
the heavens, or the eruption of subterraneous fire, and whose remains
were hid, even by that sea which holds no living fish in its bosom,
bears no skiff on its surface, and, as if its own dreadful bed were the
only fit receptacle for its sullen waters, sends not, like other lakes,
a tribute to the ocean. The whole land around, as in the days of Moses,
was “brimstone and salt; it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass
groweth thereon.” The land as well as the lake might be termed dead, as
producing nothing having resemblance to vegetation, and even the very
air was entirely devoid of its ordinary winged inhabitants, deterred
probably by the odour of bitumen and sulphur which the burning sun
exhaled from the waters of the lake in steaming clouds, frequently
assuming the appearance of waterspouts. Masses of the slimy and
sulphureous substance called naphtha, which floated idly on the sluggish
and sullen waves, supplied those rolling clouds with new vapours, and
afforded awful testimony to the truth of the Mosaic history.

Upon this scene of desolation the sun shone with almost intolerable
splendour, and all living nature seemed to have hidden itself from the
rays, excepting the solitary figure which moved through the flitting
sand at a foot's pace, and appeared the sole breathing thing on the wide
surface of the plain. The dress of the rider and the accoutrements of
his horse were peculiarly unfit for the traveller in such a country. A
coat of linked mail, with long sleeves, plated gauntlets, and a steel
breastplate, had not been esteemed a sufficient weight of armour; there
were also his triangular shield suspended round his neck, and his barred
helmet of steel, over which he had a hood and collar of mail, which
was drawn around the warrior's shoulders and throat, and filled up the
vacancy between the hauberk and the headpiece. His lower limbs were
sheathed, like his body, in flexible mail, securing the legs and thighs,
while the feet rested in plated shoes, which corresponded with the
gauntlets. A long, broad, straight-shaped, double-edged falchion, with
a handle formed like a cross, corresponded with a stout poniard on the
other side. The knight also bore, secured to his saddle, with one end
resting on his stirrup, the long steel-headed lance, his own proper
weapon, which, as he rode, projected backwards, and displayed its little
pennoncelle, to dally with the faint breeze, or drop in the dead calm.
To this cumbrous equipment must be added a surcoat of embroidered cloth,
much frayed and worn, which was thus far useful that it excluded the
burning rays of the sun from the armour, which they would otherwise have
rendered intolerable to the wearer. The surcoat bore, in several places,
the arms of the owner, although much defaced. These seemed to be a
couchant leopard, with the motto, “I sleep; wake me not.” An outline of
the same device might be traced on his shield, though many a blow had
almost effaced the painting. The flat top of his cumbrous cylindrical
helmet was unadorned with any crest. In retaining their own unwieldy
defensive armour, the Northern Crusaders seemed to set at defiance the
nature of the climate and country to which they had come to war.

The accoutrements of the horse were scarcely less massive and unwieldy
than those of the rider. The animal had a heavy saddle plated with
steel, uniting in front with a species of breastplate, and behind with
defensive armour made to cover the loins. Then there was a steel axe,
or hammer, called a mace-of-arms, and which hung to the saddle-bow. The
reins were secured by chain-work, and the front-stall of the bridle was
a steel plate, with apertures for the eyes and nostrils, having in the
midst a short, sharp pike, projecting from the forehead of the horse
like the horn of the fabulous unicorn.

But habit had made the endurance of this load of panoply a second
nature, both to the knight and his gallant charger. Numbers, indeed,
of the Western warriors who hurried to Palestine died ere they became
inured to the burning climate; but there were others to whom that
climate became innocent and even friendly, and among this fortunate
number was the solitary horseman who now traversed the border of the
Dead Sea.

Nature, which cast his limbs in a mould of uncommon strength, fitted
to wear his linked hauberk with as much ease as if the meshes had been
formed of cobwebs, had endowed him with a constitution as strong as his
limbs, and which bade defiance to almost all changes of climate, as well
as to fatigue and privations of every kind. His disposition seemed, in
some degree, to partake of the qualities of his bodily frame; and as
the one possessed great strength and endurance, united with the power of
violent exertion, the other, under a calm and undisturbed semblance, had
much of the fiery and enthusiastic love of glory which constituted the
principal attribute of the renowned Norman line, and had rendered
them sovereigns in every corner of Europe where they had drawn their
adventurous swords.

It was not, however, to all the race that fortune proposed such tempting
rewards; and those obtained by the solitary knight during two years'
campaign in Palestine had been only temporal fame, and, as he was taught
to believe, spiritual privileges. Meantime, his slender stock of money
had melted away, the rather that he did not pursue any of the ordinary
modes by which the followers of the Crusade condescended to recruit
their diminished resources at the expense of the people of Palestine--he
exacted no gifts from the wretched natives for sparing their possessions
when engaged in warfare with the Saracens, and he had not availed
himself of any opportunity of enriching himself by the ransom of
prisoners of consequence. The small train which had followed him from
his native country had been gradually diminished, as the means of
maintaining them disappeared, and his only remaining squire was at
present on a sick-bed, and unable to attend his master, who travelled,
as we have seen, singly and alone. This was of little consequence to the
Crusader, who was accustomed to consider his good sword as his safest
escort, and devout thoughts as his best companion.

Nature had, however, her demands for refreshment and repose even on
the iron frame and patient disposition of the Knight of the Sleeping
Leopard; and at noon, when the Dead Sea lay at some distance on his
right, he joyfully hailed the sight of two or three palm-trees, which
arose beside the well which was assigned for his mid-day station. His
good horse, too, which had plodded forward with the steady endurance of
his master, now lifted his head, expanded his nostrils, and quickened
his pace, as if he snuffed afar off the living waters which marked the
place of repose and refreshment. But labour and danger were doomed to
intervene ere the horse or horseman reached the desired spot.

As the Knight of the Couchant Leopard continued to fix his eyes
attentively on the yet distant cluster of palm-trees, it seemed to him
as if some object was moving among them. The distant form separated
itself from the trees, which partly hid its motions, and advanced
towards the knight with a speed which soon showed a mounted horseman,
whom his turban, long spear, and green caftan floating in the wind, on
his nearer approach showed to be a Saracen cavalier. “In the desert,”
 saith an Eastern proverb, “no man meets a friend.” The Crusader was
totally indifferent whether the infidel, who now approached on his
gallant barb as if borne on the wings of an eagle, came as friend or
foe--perhaps, as a vowed champion of the Cross, he might rather have
preferred the latter. He disengaged his lance from his saddle, seized
it with the right hand, placed it in rest with its point half elevated,
gathered up the reins in the left, waked his horse's mettle with
the spur, and prepared to encounter the stranger with the calm
self-confidence belonging to the victor in many contests.

The Saracen came on at the speedy gallop of an Arab horseman, managing
his steed more by his limbs and the inflection of his body than by any
use of the reins, which hung loose in his left hand; so that he was
enabled to wield the light, round buckler of the skin of the rhinoceros,
ornamented with silver loops, which he wore on his arm, swinging it as
if he meant to oppose its slender circle to the formidable thrust of the
Western lance. His own long spear was not couched or levelled like that
of his antagonist, but grasped by the middle with his right hand, and
brandished at arm's-length above his head. As the cavalier approached
his enemy at full career, he seemed to expect that the Knight of the
Leopard should put his horse to the gallop to encounter him. But the
Christian knight, well acquainted with the customs of Eastern warriors,
did not mean to exhaust his good horse by any unnecessary exertion; and,
on the contrary, made a dead halt, confident that if the enemy advanced
to the actual shock, his own weight, and that of his powerful charger,
would give him sufficient advantage, without the additional momentum
of rapid motion. Equally sensible and apprehensive of such a probable
result, the Saracen cavalier, when he had approached towards the
Christian within twice the length of his lance, wheeled his steed to the
left with inimitable dexterity, and rode twice around his antagonist,
who, turning without quitting his ground, and presenting his front
constantly to his enemy, frustrated his attempts to attack him on an
unguarded point; so that the Saracen, wheeling his horse, was fain to
retreat to the distance of a hundred yards. A second time, like a hawk
attacking a heron, the heathen renewed the charge, and a second time
was fain to retreat without coming to a close struggle. A third time he
approached in the same manner, when the Christian knight, desirous to
terminate this illusory warfare, in which he might at length have been
worn out by the activity of his foeman, suddenly seized the mace which
hung at his saddle-bow, and, with a strong hand and unerring aim,
hurled it against the head of the Emir, for such and not less his enemy
appeared. The Saracen was just aware of the formidable missile in time
to interpose his light buckler betwixt the mace and his head; but the
violence of the blow forced the buckler down on his turban, and though
that defence also contributed to deaden its violence, the Saracen was
beaten from his horse. Ere the Christian could avail himself of this
mishap, his nimble foeman sprung from the ground, and, calling on his
steed, which instantly returned to his side, he leaped into his seat
without touching the stirrup, and regained all the advantage of which
the Knight of the Leopard hoped to deprive him. But the latter had
in the meanwhile recovered his mace, and the Eastern cavalier, who
remembered the strength and dexterity with which his antagonist had
aimed it, seemed to keep cautiously out of reach of that weapon of which
he had so lately felt the force, while he showed his purpose of waging a
distant warfare with missile weapons of his own. Planting his long spear
in the sand at a distance from the scene of combat, he strung, with
great address, a short bow, which he carried at his back; and putting
his horse to the gallop, once more described two or three circles of
a wider extent than formerly, in the course of which he discharged six
arrows at the Christian with such unerring skill that the goodness of
his harness alone saved him from being wounded in as many places. The
seventh shaft apparently found a less perfect part of the armour, and
the Christian dropped heavily from his horse. But what was the surprise
of the Saracen, when, dismounting to examine the condition of his
prostrate enemy, he found himself suddenly within the grasp of the
European, who had had recourse to this artifice to bring his enemy
within his reach! Even in this deadly grapple the Saracen was saved by
his agility and presence of mind. He unloosed the sword-belt, in which
the Knight of the Leopard had fixed his hold, and, thus eluding his
fatal grasp, mounted his horse, which seemed to watch his motions with
the intelligence of a human being, and again rode off. But in the last
encounter the Saracen had lost his sword and his quiver of arrows, both
of which were attached to the girdle which he was obliged to abandon. He
had also lost his turban in the struggle.

These disadvantages seemed to incline the Moslem to a truce. He
approached the Christian with his right hand extended, but no longer in
a menacing attitude.

“There is truce betwixt our nations,” he said, in the lingua franca
commonly used for the purpose of communication with the Crusaders;
“wherefore should there be war betwixt thee and me? Let there be peace
betwixt us.”

“I am well contented,” answered he of the Couchant Leopard; “but what
security dost thou offer that thou wilt observe the truce?”

“The word of a follower of the Prophet was never broken,” answered the
Emir. “It is thou, brave Nazarene, from whom I should demand security,
did I not know that treason seldom dwells with courage.”

The Crusader felt that the confidence of the Moslem made him ashamed of
his own doubts.

“By the cross of my sword,” he said, laying his hand on the weapon as
he spoke, “I will be true companion to thee, Saracen, while our fortune
wills that we remain in company together.”

“By Mohammed, Prophet of God, and by Allah, God of the Prophet,” replied
his late foeman, “there is not treachery in my heart towards thee. And
now wend we to yonder fountain, for the hour of rest is at hand, and
the stream had hardly touched my lip when I was called to battle by thy
approach.”

The Knight of the Couchant Leopard yielded a ready and courteous assent;
and the late foes, without an angry look or gesture of doubt, rode side
by side to the little cluster of palm-trees.



CHAPTER II.

Times of danger have always, and in a peculiar degree, their seasons
of good-will and security; and this was particularly so in the ancient
feudal ages, in which, as the manners of the period had assigned war
to be the chief and most worthy occupation of mankind, the intervals
of peace, or rather of truce, were highly relished by those warriors to
whom they were seldom granted, and endeared by the very circumstances
which rendered them transitory. It is not worth while preserving any
permanent enmity against a foe whom a champion has fought with to-day,
and may again stand in bloody opposition to on the next morning. The
time and situation afforded so much room for the ebullition of violent
passions, that men, unless when peculiarly opposed to each other,
or provoked by the recollection of private and individual wrongs,
cheerfully enjoyed in each other's society the brief intervals of
pacific intercourse which a warlike life admitted.

The distinction of religions, nay, the fanatical zeal which animated the
followers of the Cross and of the Crescent against each other, was much
softened by a feeling so natural to generous combatants, and especially
cherished by the spirit of chivalry. This last strong impulse had
extended itself gradually from the Christians to their mortal enemies
the Saracens, both of Spain and of Palestine. The latter were, indeed,
no longer the fanatical savages who had burst from the centre of Arabian
deserts, with the sabre in one hand and the Koran in the other, to
inflict death or the faith of Mohammed, or, at the best, slavery and
tribute, upon all who dared to oppose the belief of the prophet of
Mecca. These alternatives indeed had been offered to the unwarlike
Greeks and Syrians; but in contending with the Western Christians,
animated by a zeal as fiery as their own, and possessed of as
unconquerable courage, address, and success in arms, the Saracens
gradually caught a part of their manners, and especially of those
chivalrous observances which were so well calculated to charm the minds
of a proud and conquering people. They had their tournaments and games
of chivalry; they had even their knights, or some rank analogous; and
above all, the Saracens observed their plighted faith with an accuracy
which might sometimes put to shame those who owned a better religion.
Their truces, whether national or betwixt individuals, were faithfully
observed; and thus it was that war, in itself perhaps the greatest
of evils, yet gave occasion for display of good faith, generosity,
clemency, and even kindly affections, which less frequently occur in
more tranquil periods, where the passions of men, experiencing wrongs or
entertaining quarrels which cannot be brought to instant decision, are
apt to smoulder for a length of time in the bosoms of those who are so
unhappy as to be their prey.

It was under the influence of these milder feelings which soften the
horrors of warfare that the Christian and Saracen, who had so lately
done their best for each other's mutual destruction, rode at a slow pace
towards the fountain of palm-trees to which the Knight of the Couchant
Leopard had been tending, when interrupted in mid-passage by his
fleet and dangerous adversary. Each was wrapt for some time in his own
reflections, and took breath after an encounter which had threatened to
be fatal to one or both; and their good horses seemed no less to enjoy
the interval of repose.

That of the Saracen, however, though he had been forced into much the
more violent and extended sphere of motion, appeared to have suffered
less from fatigue than the charger of the European knight. The sweat
hung still clammy on the limbs of the latter, when those of the noble
Arab were completely dried by the interval of tranquil exercise, all
saving the foam-flakes which were still visible on his bridle and
housings. The loose soil on which he trod so much augmented the distress
of the Christian's horse, heavily loaded by his own armour and the
weight of his rider, that the latter jumped from his saddle, and led his
charger along the deep dust of the loamy soil, which was burnt in the
sun into a substance more impalpable than the finest sand, and thus
gave the faithful horse refreshment at the expense of his own additional
toil; for, iron-sheathed as he was, he sunk over the mailed shoes at
every step which he placed on a surface so light and unresisting.

“You are right,” said the Saracen--and it was the first word that either
had spoken since their truce was concluded; “your strong horse deserves
your care. But what do you in the desert with an animal which sinks over
the fetlock at every step as if he would plant each foot deep as the
root of a date-tree?”

“Thou speakest rightly, Saracen,” said the Christian knight, not
delighted at the tone with which the infidel criticized his favourite
steed--“rightly, according to thy knowledge and observation. But my good
horse hath ere now borne me, in mine own land, over as wide a lake as
thou seest yonder spread out behind us, yet not wet one hair above his
hoof.”

The Saracen looked at him with as much surprise as his manners permitted
him to testify, which was only expressed by a slight approach to a
disdainful smile, that hardly curled perceptibly the broad, thick
moustache which enveloped his upper lip.

“It is justly spoken,” he said, instantly composing himself to his usual
serene gravity; “List to a Frank, and hear a fable.”

“Thou art not courteous, misbeliever,” replied the Crusader, “to doubt
the word of a dubbed knight; and were it not that thou speakest in
ignorance, and not in malice, our truce had its ending ere it is well
begun. Thinkest thou I tell thee an untruth when I say that I, one of
five hundred horsemen, armed in complete mail, have ridden--ay, and
ridden for miles, upon water as solid as the crystal, and ten times less
brittle?”

“What wouldst thou tell me?” answered the Moslem. “Yonder inland sea
thou dost point at is peculiar in this, that, by the especial curse of
God, it suffereth nothing to sink in its waves, but wafts them away, and
casts them on its margin; but neither the Dead Sea, nor any of the
seven oceans which environ the earth, will endure on their surface the
pressure of a horse's foot, more than the Red Sea endured to sustain the
advance of Pharaoh and his host.”

“You speak truth after your knowledge, Saracen,” said the Christian
knight; “and yet, trust me, I fable not, according to mine. Heat, in
this climate, converts the soil into something almost as unstable
as water; and in my land cold often converts the water itself into
a substance as hard as rock. Let us speak of this no longer, for
the thoughts of the calm, clear, blue refulgence of a winter's lake,
glimmering to stars and moonbeam, aggravate the horrors of this fiery
desert, where, methinks, the very air which we breathe is like the
vapour of a fiery furnace seven times heated.”

The Saracen looked on him with some attention, as if to discover in
what sense he was to understand words which, to him, must have appeared
either to contain something of mystery or of imposition. At length he
seemed determined in what manner to receive the language of his new
companion.

“You are,” he said, “of a nation that loves to laugh, and you make sport
with yourselves, and with others, by telling what is impossible, and
reporting what never chanced. Thou art one of the knights of France, who
hold it for glee and pastime to GAB, as they term it, of exploits that
are beyond human power. [Gaber. This French word signified a sort of
sport much used among the French chivalry, which consisted in vying
with each other in making the most romantic gasconades. The verb and the
meaning are retained in Scottish.] I were wrong to challenge, for the
time, the privilege of thy speech, since boasting is more natural to
thee than truth.”

“I am not of their land, neither of their fashion,” said the Knight,
“which is, as thou well sayest, to GAB of that which they dare not
undertake--or, undertaking, cannot perfect. But in this I have imitated
their folly, brave Saracen, that in talking to thee of what thou canst
not comprehend, I have, even in speaking most simple truth, fully
incurred the character of a braggart in thy eyes; so, I pray you, let my
words pass.”

They had now arrived at the knot of palm-trees and the fountain which
welled out from beneath their shade in sparkling profusion.

We have spoken of a moment of truce in the midst of war; and this, a
spot of beauty in the midst of a sterile desert, was scarce less dear
to the imagination. It was a scene which, perhaps, would elsewhere have
deserved little notice; but as the single speck, in a boundless
horizon, which promised the refreshment of shade and living water, these
blessings, held cheap where they are common, rendered the fountain and
its neighbourhood a little paradise. Some generous or charitable hand,
ere yet the evil days of Palestine began, had walled in and arched over
the fountain, to preserve it from being absorbed in the earth, or choked
by the flitting clouds of dust with which the least breath of wind
covered the desert. The arch was now broken, and partly ruinous; but it
still so far projected over and covered in the fountain that it excluded
the sun in a great measure from its waters, which, hardly touched by a
straggling beam, while all around was blazing, lay in a steady repose,
alike delightful to the eye and the imagination. Stealing from under the
arch, they were first received in a marble basin, much defaced indeed,
but still cheering the eye, by showing that the place was anciently
considered as a station, that the hand of man had been there and that
man's accommodation had been in some measure attended to. The thirsty
and weary traveller was reminded by these signs that others had suffered
similar difficulties, reposed in the same spot, and, doubtless, found
their way in safety to a more fertile country. Again, the scarce visible
current which escaped from the basin served to nourish the few trees
which surrounded the fountain, and where it sunk into the ground and
disappeared, its refreshing presence was acknowledged by a carpet of
velvet verdure.

In this delightful spot the two warriors halted, and each, after his own
fashion, proceeded to relieve his horse from saddle, bit, and rein,
and permitted the animals to drink at the basin, ere they refreshed
themselves from the fountain head, which arose under the vault. They
then suffered the steeds to go loose, confident that their interest, as
well as their domesticated habits, would prevent their straying from the
pure water and fresh grass.

Christian and Saracen next sat down together on the turf, and produced
each the small allowance of store which they carried for their own
refreshment. Yet, ere they severally proceeded to their scanty meal,
they eyed each other with that curiosity which the close and doubtful
conflict in which they had been so lately engaged was calculated to
inspire. Each was desirous to measure the strength, and form some
estimate of the character, of an adversary so formidable; and each was
compelled to acknowledge that, had he fallen in the conflict, it had
been by a noble hand.

The champions formed a striking contrast to each other in person and
features, and might have formed no inaccurate representatives of their
different nations. The Frank seemed a powerful man, built after the
ancient Gothic cast of form, with light brown hair, which, on the
removal of his helmet, was seen to curl thick and profusely over his
head. His features had acquired, from the hot climate, a hue much darker
than those parts of his neck which were less frequently exposed to view,
or than was warranted by his full and well-opened blue eye, the colour
of his hair, and of the moustaches which thickly shaded his upper
lip, while his chin was carefully divested of beard, after the Norman
fashion. His nose was Grecian and well formed; his mouth rather large
in proportion, but filled with well-set, strong, and beautifully white
teeth; his head small, and set upon the neck with much grace. His age
could not exceed thirty, but if the effects of toil and climate were
allowed for, might be three or four years under that period. His form
was tall, powerful, and athletic, like that of a man whose strength
might, in later life, become unwieldy, but which was hitherto united
with lightness and activity. His hands, when he withdrew the mailed
gloves, were long, fair, and well-proportioned; the wrist-bones
peculiarly large and strong; and the arms remarkably well-shaped and
brawny. A military hardihood and careless frankness of expression
characterized his language and his motions; and his voice had the tone
of one more accustomed to command than to obey, and who was in the habit
of expressing his sentiments aloud and boldly, whenever he was called
upon to announce them.

The Saracen Emir formed a marked and striking contrast with the Western
Crusader. His stature was indeed above the middle size, but he was at
least three inches shorter than the European, whose size approached the
gigantic. His slender limbs and long, spare hands and arms, though well
proportioned to his person, and suited to the style of his countenance,
did not at first aspect promise the display of vigour and elasticity
which the Emir had lately exhibited. But on looking more closely, his
limbs, where exposed to view, seemed divested of all that was fleshy or
cumbersome; so that nothing being left but bone, brawn, and sinew, it
was a frame fitted for exertion and fatigue, far beyond that of a bulky
champion, whose strength and size are counterbalanced by weight, and
who is exhausted by his own exertions. The countenance of the Saracen
naturally bore a general national resemblance to the Eastern tribe from
whom he descended, and was as unlike as possible to the exaggerated
terms in which the minstrels of the day were wont to represent the
infidel champions, and the fabulous description which a sister art still
presents as the Saracen's Head upon signposts. His features were small,
well-formed, and delicate, though deeply embrowned by the Eastern sun,
and terminated by a flowing and curled black beard, which seemed trimmed
with peculiar care. The nose was straight and regular, the eyes keen,
deep-set, black, and glowing, and his teeth equalled in beauty the ivory
of his deserts. The person and proportions of the Saracen, in short,
stretched on the turf near to his powerful antagonist, might have been
compared to his sheeny and crescent-formed sabre, with its narrow and
light but bright and keen Damascus blade, contrasted with the long and
ponderous Gothic war-sword which was flung unbuckled on the same sod.
The Emir was in the very flower of his age, and might perhaps have been
termed eminently beautiful, but for the narrowness of his forehead and
something of too much thinness and sharpness of feature, or at least
what might have seemed such in a European estimate of beauty.

The manners of the Eastern warrior were grave, graceful, and decorous;
indicating, however, in some particulars, the habitual restraint which
men of warm and choleric tempers often set as a guard upon their native
impetuosity of disposition, and at the same time a sense of his own
dignity, which seemed to impose a certain formality of behaviour in him
who entertained it.

This haughty feeling of superiority was perhaps equally entertained by
his new European acquaintance, but the effect was different; and the
same feeling, which dictated to the Christian knight a bold, blunt, and
somewhat careless bearing, as one too conscious of his own importance
to be anxious about the opinions of others, appeared to prescribe to the
Saracen a style of courtesy more studiously and formally observant of
ceremony. Both were courteous; but the courtesy of the Christian seemed
to flow rather from a good humoured sense of what was due to others;
that of the Moslem, from a high feeling of what was to be expected from
himself.

The provision which each had made for his refreshment was simple, but
the meal of the Saracen was abstemious. A handful of dates and a morsel
of coarse barley-bread sufficed to relieve the hunger of the latter,
whose education had habituated them to the fare of the desert, although,
since their Syrian conquests, the Arabian simplicity of life frequently
gave place to the most unbounded profusion of luxury. A few draughts
from the lovely fountain by which they reposed completed his meal. That
of the Christian, though coarse, was more genial. Dried hog's flesh, the
abomination of the Moslemah, was the chief part of his repast; and his
drink, derived from a leathern bottle, contained something better than
pure element. He fed with more display of appetite, and drank with more
appearance of satisfaction, than the Saracen judged it becoming to show
in the performance of a mere bodily function; and, doubtless, the secret
contempt which each entertained for the other, as the follower of a
false religion, was considerably increased by the marked difference of
their diet and manners. But each had found the weight of his opponent's
arm, and the mutual respect which the bold struggle had created was
sufficient to subdue other and inferior considerations. Yet the Saracen
could not help remarking the circumstances which displeased him in the
Christian's conduct and manners; and, after he had witnessed for some
time in silence the keen appetite which protracted the knight's banquet
long after his own was concluded, he thus addressed him:--

“Valiant Nazarene, is it fitting that one who can fight like a man
should feed like a dog or a wolf? Even a misbelieving Jew would shudder
at the food which you seem to eat with as much relish as if it were
fruit from the trees of Paradise.”

“Valiant Saracen,” answered the Christian, looking up with some surprise
at the accusation thus unexpectedly brought, “know thou that I exercise
my Christian freedom in using that which is forbidden to the Jews,
being, as they esteem themselves, under the bondage of the old law of
Moses. We, Saracen, be it known to thee, have a better warrant for
what we do--Ave Maria!--be we thankful.” And, as if in defiance of
his companion's scruples, he concluded a short Latin grace with a long
draught from the leathern bottle.

“That, too, you call a part of your liberty,” said the Saracen; “and
as you feed like the brutes, so you degrade yourself to the bestial
condition by drinking a poisonous liquor which even they refuse!”

“Know, foolish Saracen,” replied the Christian, without hesitation,
“that thou blasphemest the gifts of God, even with the blasphemy of thy
father Ishmael. The juice of the grape is given to him that will use it
wisely, as that which cheers the heart of man after toil, refreshes him
in sickness, and comforts him in sorrow. He who so enjoyeth it may thank
God for his winecup as for his daily bread; and he who abuseth the gift
of Heaven is not a greater fool in his intoxication than thou in thine
abstinence.”

The keen eye of the Saracen kindled at this sarcasm, and his hand sought
the hilt of his poniard. It was but a momentary thought, however, and
died away in the recollection of the powerful champion with whom he
had to deal, and the desperate grapple, the impression of which still
throbbed in his limbs and veins; and he contented himself with pursuing
the contest in colloquy, as more convenient for the time.

“Thy words” he said, “O Nazarene, might create anger, did not thy
ignorance raise compassion. Seest thou not, O thou more blind than any
who asks alms at the door of the Mosque, that the liberty thou dost
boast of is restrained even in that which is dearest to man's happiness
and to his household; and that thy law, if thou dost practise it, binds
thee in marriage to one single mate, be she sick or healthy, be she
fruitful or barren, bring she comfort and joy, or clamour and strife,
to thy table and to thy bed? This, Nazarene, I do indeed call slavery;
whereas, to the faithful, hath the Prophet assigned upon earth the
patriarchal privileges of Abraham our father, and of Solomon, the wisest
of mankind, having given us here a succession of beauty at our pleasure,
and beyond the grave the black-eyed houris of Paradise.”

“Now, by His name that I most reverence in heaven,” said the Christian,
“and by hers whom I most worship on earth, thou art but a blinded and
a bewildered infidel!--That diamond signet which thou wearest on thy
finger, thou holdest it, doubtless, as of inestimable value?”

“Balsora and Bagdad cannot show the like,” replied the Saracen; “but
what avails it to our purpose?”

“Much,” replied the Frank, “as thou shalt thyself confess. Take my
war-axe and dash the stone into twenty shivers: would each fragment be
as valuable as the original gem, or would they, all collected, bear the
tenth part of its estimation?”

“That is a child's question,” answered the Saracen; “the fragments of
such a stone would not equal the entire jewel in the degree of hundreds
to one.”

“Saracen,” replied the Christian warrior, “the love which a true knight
binds on one only, fair and faithful, is the gem entire; the affection
thou flingest among thy enslaved wives and half-wedded slaves is
worthless, comparatively, as the sparkling shivers of the broken
diamond.”

“Now, by the Holy Caaba,” said the Emir, “thou art a madman who hugs
his chain of iron as if it were of gold! Look more closely. This ring
of mine would lose half its beauty were not the signet encircled and
enchased with these lesser brilliants, which grace it and set it off.
The central diamond is man, firm and entire, his value depending on
himself alone; and this circle of lesser jewels are women, borrowing
his lustre, which he deals out to them as best suits his pleasure or
his convenience. Take the central stone from the signet, and the
diamond itself remains as valuable as ever, while the lesser gems are
comparatively of little value. And this is the true reading of thy
parable; for what sayeth the poet Mansour: 'It is the favour of man
which giveth beauty and comeliness to woman, as the stream glitters no
longer when the sun ceaseth to shine.'”

“Saracen,” replied the Crusader, “thou speakest like one who never saw
a woman worthy the affection of a soldier. Believe me, couldst thou
look upon those of Europe, to whom, after Heaven, we of the order of
knighthood vow fealty and devotion, thou wouldst loathe for ever the
poor sensual slaves who form thy haram. The beauty of our fair ones
gives point to our spears and edge to our swords; their words are our
law; and as soon will a lamp shed lustre when unkindled, as a knight
distinguish himself by feats of arms, having no mistress of his
affection.”

“I have heard of this frenzy among the warriors of the West,” said the
Emir, “and have ever accounted it one of the accompanying symptoms of
that insanity which brings you hither to obtain possession of an empty
sepulchre. But yet, methinks, so highly have the Franks whom I have met
with extolled the beauty of their women, I could be well contented to
behold with mine own eyes those charms which can transform such brave
warriors into the tools of their pleasure.”

“Brave Saracen,” said the Knight, “if I were not on a pilgrimage to the
Holy Sepulchre, it should be my pride to conduct you, on assurance of
safety, to the camp of Richard of England, than whom none knows better
how to do honour to a noble foe; and though I be poor and unattended
yet have I interest to secure for thee, or any such as thou seemest, not
safety only, but respect and esteem. There shouldst thou see several
of the fairest beauties of France and Britain form a small circle, the
brilliancy of which exceeds ten-thousandfold the lustre of mines of
diamonds such as thine.”

“Now, by the corner-stone of the Caaba!” said the Saracen, “I will
accept thy invitation as freely as it is given, if thou wilt postpone
thy present intent; and, credit me, brave Nazarene, it were better for
thyself to turn back thy horse's head towards the camp of thy people,
for to travel towards Jerusalem without a passport is but a wilful
casting-away of thy life.”

“I have a pass,” answered the Knight, producing a parchment, “Under
Saladin's hand and signet.”

The Saracen bent his head to the dust as he recognized the seal and
handwriting of the renowned Soldan of Egypt and Syria; and having kissed
the paper with profound respect, he pressed it to his forehead, then
returned it to the Christian, saying, “Rash Frank, thou hast sinned
against thine own blood and mine, for not showing this to me when we
met.”

“You came with levelled spear,” said the Knight. “Had a troop of
Saracens so assailed me, it might have stood with my honour to have
shown the Soldan's pass, but never to one man.”

“And yet one man,” said the Saracen haughtily, “was enough to interrupt
your journey.”

“True, brave Moslem,” replied the Christian; “but there are few such as
thou art. Such falcons fly not in flocks; or, if they do, they pounce
not in numbers upon one.”

“Thou dost us but justice,” said the Saracen, evidently gratified by
the compliment, as he had been touched by the implied scorn of the
European's previous boast; “from us thou shouldst have had no wrong. But
well was it for me that I failed to slay thee, with the safeguard of
the king of kings upon thy person. Certain it were, that the cord or the
sabre had justly avenged such guilt.”

“I am glad to hear that its influence shall be availing to me,” said the
Knight; “for I have heard that the road is infested with robber-tribes,
who regard nothing in comparison of an opportunity of plunder.”

“The truth has been told to thee, brave Christian,” said the Saracen;
“but I swear to thee, by the turban of the Prophet, that shouldst thou
miscarry in any haunt of such villains, I will myself undertake thy
revenge with five thousand horse. I will slay every male of them, and
send their women into such distant captivity that the name of their
tribe shall never again be heard within five hundred miles of Damascus.
I will sow with salt the foundations of their village, and there shall
never live thing dwell there, even from that time forward.”

“I had rather the trouble which you design for yourself were in revenge
of some other more important person than of me, noble Emir,” replied the
Knight; “but my vow is recorded in heaven, for good or for evil, and I
must be indebted to you for pointing me out the way to my resting-place
for this evening.”

“That,” said the Saracen, “must be under the black covering of my
father's tent.”

“This night,” answered the Christian, “I must pass in prayer and
penitence with a holy man, Theodorick of Engaddi, who dwells amongst
these wilds, and spends his life in the service of God.”

“I will at least see you safe thither,” said the Saracen.

“That would be pleasant convoy for me,” said the Christian; “yet might
endanger the future security of the good father; for the cruel hand of
your people has been red with the blood of the servants of the Lord, and
therefore do we come hither in plate and mail, with sword and lance, to
open the road to the Holy Sepulchre, and protect the chosen saints and
anchorites who yet dwell in this land of promise and of miracle.”

“Nazarene,” said the Moslem, “in this the Greeks and Syrians have much
belied us, seeing we do but after the word of Abubeker Alwakel, the
successor of the Prophet, and, after him, the first commander of true
believers. 'Go forth,' he said, 'Yezed Ben Sophian,' when he sent that
renowned general to take Syria from the infidels; 'quit yourselves like
men in battle, but slay neither the aged, the infirm, the women, nor the
children. Waste not the land, neither destroy corn and fruit-trees; they
are the gifts of Allah. Keep faith when you have made any covenant,
even if it be to your own harm. If ye find holy men labouring with their
hands, and serving God in the desert, hurt them not, neither destroy
their dwellings. But when you find them with shaven crowns, they are of
the synagogue of Satan! Smite with the sabre, slay, cease not till
they become believers or tributaries.' As the Caliph, companion of the
Prophet, hath told us, so have we done, and those whom our justice has
smitten are but the priests of Satan. But unto the good men who, without
stirring up nation against nation, worship sincerely in the faith of
Issa Ben Mariam, we are a shadow and a shield; and such being he whom
you seek, even though the light of the Prophet hath not reached him,
from me he will only have love, favour, and regard.”

“The anchorite whom I would now visit,” said the warlike pilgrim, “is, I
have heard, no priest; but were he of that anointed and sacred order, I
would prove with my good lance, against paynim and infidel--”

“Let us not defy each other, brother,” interrupted the Saracen; “we
shall find, either of us, enough of Franks or of Moslemah on whom to
exercise both sword and lance. This Theodorick is protected both by Turk
and Arab; and, though one of strange conditions at intervals, yet, on
the whole, he bears himself so well as the follower of his own prophet,
that he merits the protection of him who was sent--”

“Now, by Our Lady, Saracen,” exclaimed the Christian, “if thou darest
name in the same breath the camel-driver of Mecca with--”

An electrical shock of passion thrilled through the form of the Emir;
but it was only momentary, and the calmness of his reply had both
dignity and reason in it, when he said, “Slander not him whom thou
knowest not--the rather that we venerate the founder of thy religion,
while we condemn the doctrine which your priests have spun from it. I
will myself guide thee to the cavern of the hermit, which, methinks,
without my help, thou wouldst find it a hard matter to reach. And,
on the way, let us leave to mollahs and to monks to dispute about the
divinity of our faith, and speak on themes which belong to youthful
warriors--upon battles, upon beautiful women, upon sharp swords, and
upon bright armour.”



CHAPTER III.

The warriors arose from their place of brief rest and simple
refreshment, and courteously aided each other while they carefully
replaced and adjusted the harness from which they had relieved for the
time their trusty steeds. Each seemed familiar with an employment which
at that time was a part of necessary and, indeed, of indispensable duty.
Each also seemed to possess, as far as the difference betwixt the animal
and rational species admitted, the confidence and affection of the horse
which was the constant companion of his travels and his warfare. With
the Saracen this familiar intimacy was a part of his early habits; for,
in the tents of the Eastern military tribes, the horse of the soldier
ranks next to, and almost equal in importance with, his wife and
his family; and with the European warrior, circumstances, and indeed
necessity, rendered his war-horse scarcely less than his brother in
arms. The steeds, therefore, suffered themselves quietly to be taken
from their food and liberty, and neighed and snuffled fondly around
their masters, while they were adjusting their accoutrements for further
travel and additional toil. And each warrior, as he prosecuted his own
task, or assisted with courtesy his companion, looked with observant
curiosity at the equipments of his fellow-traveller, and noted
particularly what struck him as peculiar in the fashion in which he
arranged his riding accoutrements.

Ere they remounted to resume their journey, the Christian Knight again
moistened his lips and dipped his hands in the living fountain, and said
to his pagan associate of the journey, “I would I knew the name of this
delicious fountain, that I might hold it in my grateful remembrance; for
never did water slake more deliciously a more oppressive thirst than I
have this day experienced.”

“It is called in the Arabic language,” answered the Saracen, “by a name
which signifies the Diamond of the Desert.”

“And well is it so named,” replied the Christian. “My native valley hath
a thousand springs, but not to one of them shall I attach hereafter
such precious recollection as to this solitary fount, which bestows
its liquid treasures where they are not only delightful, but nearly
indispensable.”

“You say truth,” said the Saracen; “for the curse is still on yonder
sea of death, and neither man nor beast drinks of its waves, nor of the
river which feeds without filling it, until this inhospitable desert be
passed.”

They mounted, and pursued their journey across the sandy waste. The
ardour of noon was now past, and a light breeze somewhat alleviated
the terrors of the desert, though not without bearing on its wings
an impalpable dust, which the Saracen little heeded, though his
heavily-armed companion felt it as such an annoyance that he hung his
iron casque at his saddle-bow, and substituted the light riding-cap,
termed in the language of the time a MORTIER, from its resemblance
in shape to an ordinary mortar. They rode together for some time in
silence, the Saracen performing the part of director and guide of the
journey, which he did by observing minute marks and bearings of the
distant rocks, to a ridge of which they were gradually approaching. For
a little time he seemed absorbed in the task, as a pilot when navigating
a vessel through a difficult channel; but they had not proceeded half
a league when he seemed secure of his route, and disposed, with more
frankness than was usual to his nation, to enter into conversation.

“You have asked the name,” he said, “of a mute fountain, which hath the
semblance, but not the reality, of a living thing. Let me be pardoned
to ask the name of the companion with whom I have this day encountered,
both in danger and in repose, and which I cannot fancy unknown even here
among the deserts of Palestine?”

“It is not yet worth publishing,” said the Christian. “Know, however,
that among the soldiers of the Cross I am called Kenneth--Kenneth of
the Couching Leopard; at home I have other titles, but they would sound
harsh in an Eastern ear. Brave Saracen, let me ask which of the tribes
of Arabia claims your descent, and by what name you are known?”

“Sir Kenneth,” said the Moslem, “I joy that your name is such as my lips
can easily utter. For me, I am no Arab, yet derive my descent from
a line neither less wild nor less warlike. Know, Sir Knight of the
Leopard, that I am Sheerkohf, the Lion of the Mountain, and that
Kurdistan, from which I derive my descent, holds no family more noble
than that of Seljook.”

“I have heard,” answered the Christian, “that your great Soldan claims
his blood from the same source?”

“Thanks to the Prophet that hath so far honoured our mountains as to
send from their bosom him whose word is victory,” answered the paynim.
“I am but as a worm before the King of Egypt and Syria, and yet in my
own land something my name may avail. Stranger, with how many men didst
thou come on this warfare?”

“By my faith,” said Sir Kenneth, “with aid of friends and kinsmen, I was
hardly pinched to furnish forth ten well-appointed lances, with maybe
some fifty more men, archers and varlets included. Some have deserted
my unlucky pennon--some have fallen in battle--several have died of
disease--and one trusty armour-bearer, for whose life I am now doing my
pilgrimage, lies on the bed of sickness.”

“Christian,” said Sheerkohf, “here I have five arrows in my quiver,
each feathered from the wing of an eagle. When I send one of them to my
tents, a thousand warriors mount on horseback--when I send another, an
equal force will arise--for the five, I can command five thousand men;
and if I send my bow, ten thousand mounted riders will shake the desert.
And with thy fifty followers thou hast come to invade a land in which I
am one of the meanest!”

“Now, by the rood, Saracen,” retorted the Western warrior, “thou
shouldst know, ere thou vauntest thyself, that one steel glove can crush
a whole handful of hornets.”

“Ay, but it must first enclose them within its grasp,” said the Saracen,
with a smile which might have endangered their new alliance, had he not
changed the subject by adding, “And is bravery so much esteemed amongst
the Christian princes that thou, thus void of means and of men, canst
offer, as thou didst of late, to be my protector and security in the
camp of thy brethren?”

“Know, Saracen,” said the Christian, “since such is thy style, that the
name of a knight, and the blood of a gentleman, entitle him to place
himself on the same rank with sovereigns even of the first degree, in
so far as regards all but regal authority and dominion. Were Richard
of England himself to wound the honour of a knight as poor as I am, he
could not, by the law of chivalry, deny him the combat.”

“Methinks I should like to look upon so strange a scene,” said the Emir,
“in which a leathern belt and a pair of spurs put the poorest on a level
with the most powerful.”

“You must add free blood and a fearless heart,” said the Christian;
“then, perhaps, you will not have spoken untruly of the dignity of
knighthood.”

“And mix you as boldly amongst the females of your chiefs and leaders?”
 asked the Saracen.

“God forbid,” said the Knight of the Leopard, “that the poorest knight
in Christendom should not be free, in all honourable service, to devote
his hand and sword, the fame of his actions, and the fixed devotion of
his heart, to the fairest princess who ever wore coronet on her brow!”

“But a little while since,” said the Saracen, “and you described love as
the highest treasure of the heart--thine hath undoubtedly been high and
nobly bestowed?”

“Stranger,” answered the Christian, blushing deeply as he spoke, “we
tell not rashly where it is we have bestowed our choicest treasures. It
is enough for thee to know that, as thou sayest, my love is highly and
nobly bestowed--most highly--most nobly; but if thou wouldst hear of
love and broken lances, venture thyself, as thou sayest, to the camp of
the Crusaders, and thou wilt find exercise for thine ears, and, if thou
wilt, for thy hands too.”

The Eastern warrior, raising himself in his stirrups, and shaking aloft
his lance, replied, “Hardly, I fear, shall I find one with a crossed
shoulder who will exchange with me the cast of the jerrid.”

“I will not promise for that,” replied the Knight; “though there be in
the camp certain Spaniards, who have right good skill in your Eastern
game of hurling the javelin.”

“Dogs, and sons of dogs!” ejaculated the Saracen; “what have these
Spaniards to do to come hither to combat the true believers, who, in
their own land, are their lords and taskmasters? with them I would mix
in no warlike pastime.”

“Let not the knights of Leon or Asturias hear you speak thus of them,”
 said the Knight of the Leopard. “But,” added he, smiling at the
recollection of the morning's combat, “if, instead of a reed, you were
inclined to stand the cast of a battle-axe, there are enough of Western
warriors who would gratify your longing.”

“By the beard of my father, sir,” said the Saracen, with an approach to
laughter, “the game is too rough for mere sport. I will never shun them
in battle, but my head” (pressing his hand to his brow) “will not, for a
while, permit me to seek them in sport.”

“I would you saw the axe of King Richard,” answered the Western warrior,
“to which that which hangs at my saddle-bow weighs but as a feather.”

“We hear much of that island sovereign,” said the Saracen. “Art thou one
of his subjects?”

“One of his followers I am, for this expedition,” answered the Knight,
“and honoured in the service; but not born his subject, although a
native of the island in which he reigns.”

“How mean you? “ said the Eastern soldier; “have you then two kings in
one poor island?”

“As thou sayest,” said the Scot, for such was Sir Kenneth by birth. “It
is even so; and yet, although the inhabitants of the two extremities of
that island are engaged in frequent war, the country can, as thou seest,
furnish forth such a body of men-at-arms as may go far to shake the
unholy hold which your master hath laid on the cities of Zion.”

“By the beard of Saladin, Nazarene, but that it is a thoughtless and
boyish folly, I could laugh at the simplicity of your great Sultan, who
comes hither to make conquests of deserts and rocks, and dispute the
possession of them with those who have tenfold numbers at command, while
he leaves a part of his narrow islet, in which he was born a sovereign,
to the dominion of another sceptre than his. Surely, Sir Kenneth, you
and the other good men of your country should have submitted yourselves
to the dominion of this King Richard ere you left your native land,
divided against itself, to set forth on this expedition?”

Hasty and fierce was Kenneth's answer. “No, by the bright light of
Heaven! If the King of England had not set forth to the Crusade till
he was sovereign of Scotland, the Crescent might, for me, and all
true-hearted Scots, glimmer for ever on the walls of Zion.”

Thus far he had proceeded, when, suddenly recollecting himself, he
muttered, “MEA CULPA! MEA CULPA! what have I, a soldier of the Cross, to
do with recollection of war betwixt Christian nations!”

The rapid expression of feeling corrected by the dictates of duty did
not escape the Moslem, who, if he did not entirely understand all
which it conveyed, saw enough to convince him with the assurance that
Christians, as well as Moslemah, had private feelings of personal pique,
and national quarrels, which were not entirely reconcilable. But the
Saracens were a race, polished, perhaps, to the utmost extent which
their religion permitted, and particularly capable of entertaining high
ideas of courtesy and politeness; and such sentiments prevented his
taking any notice of the inconsistency of Sir Kenneth's feelings in the
opposite characters of a Scot and a Crusader.

Meanwhile, as they advanced, the scene began to change around them. They
were now turning to the eastward, and had reached the range of steep and
barren hills which binds in that quarter the naked plain, and varies the
surface of the country, without changing its sterile character. Sharp,
rocky eminences began to rise around them, and, in a short time, deep
declivities and ascents, both formidable in height and difficult from
the narrowness of the path, offered to the travellers obstacles of a
different kind from those with which they had recently contended.

Dark caverns and chasms amongst the rocks--those grottoes so often
alluded to in Scripture--yawned fearfully on either side as they
proceeded, and the Scottish knight was informed by the Emir that these
were often the refuge of beasts of prey, or of men still more ferocious,
who, driven to desperation by the constant war, and the oppression
exercised by the soldiery, as well of the Cross as of the Crescent, had
become robbers, and spared neither rank nor religion, neither sex nor
age, in their depredations.

The Scottish knight listened with indifference to the accounts of
ravages committed by wild beasts or wicked men, secure as he felt
himself in his own valour and personal strength; but he was struck
with mysterious dread when he recollected that he was now in the awful
wilderness of the forty days' fast, and the scene of the actual personal
temptation, wherewith the Evil Principle was permitted to assail the Son
of Man. He withdrew his attention gradually from the light and worldly
conversation of the infidel warrior beside him, and, however acceptable
his gay and gallant bravery would have rendered him as a companion
elsewhere, Sir Kenneth felt as if, in those wildernesses the waste and
dry places in which the foul spirits were wont to wander when expelled
the mortals whose forms they possessed, a bare-footed friar would have
been a better associate than the gay but unbelieving paynim.

These feelings embarrassed him the rather that the Saracen's spirits
appeared to rise with the journey, and because the farther he penetrated
into the gloomy recesses of the mountains, the lighter became his
conversation, and when he found that unanswered, the louder grew his
song. Sir Kenneth knew enough of the Eastern languages to be assured
that he chanted sonnets of love, containing all the glowing praises
of beauty in which the Oriental poets are so fond of luxuriating, and
which, therefore, were peculiarly unfitted for a serious or devotional
strain of thought, the feeling best becoming the Wilderness of the
Temptation. With inconsistency enough, the Saracen also sung lays in
praise of wine, the liquid ruby of the Persian poets; and his gaiety at
length became so unsuitable to the Christian knight's contrary train of
sentiments, as, but for the promise of amity which they had exchanged,
would most likely have made Sir Kenneth take measures to change his
note. As it was, the Crusader felt as if he had by his side some gay,
licentious fiend, who endeavoured to ensnare his soul, and endanger his
immortal salvation, by inspiring loose thoughts of earthly pleasure, and
thus polluting his devotion, at a time when his faith as a Christian and
his vow as a pilgrim called on him for a serious and penitential state
of mind. He was thus greatly perplexed, and undecided how to act; and it
was in a tone of hasty displeasure that, at length breaking silence, he
interrupted the lay of the celebrated Rudpiki, in which he prefers the
mole on his mistress's bosom to all the wealth of Bokhara and Samarcand.

“Saracen,” said the Crusader sternly, “blinded as thou art, and plunged
amidst the errors of a false law, thou shouldst yet comprehend that
there are some places more holy than others, and that there are some
scenes also in which the Evil One hath more than ordinary power
over sinful mortals. I will not tell thee for what awful reason this
place--these rocks--these caverns with their gloomy arches, leading as
it were to the central abyss--are held an especial haunt of Satan and
his angels. It is enough that I have been long warned to beware of this
place by wise and holy men, to whom the qualities of the unholy region
are well known. Wherefore, Saracen, forbear thy foolish and
ill-timed levity, and turn thy thoughts to things more suited to the
spot--although, alas for thee! thy best prayers are but as blasphemy and
sin.”

The Saracen listened with some surprise, and then replied, with
good-humour and gaiety, only so far repressed as courtesy required,
“Good Sir Kenneth, methinks you deal unequally by your companion, or
else ceremony is but indifferently taught amongst your Western tribes.
I took no offence when I saw you gorge hog's flesh and drink wine, and
permitted you to enjoy a treat which you called your Christian liberty,
only pitying in my heart your foul pastimes. Wherefore, then, shouldst
thou take scandal, because I cheer, to the best of my power, a gloomy
road with a cheerful verse? What saith the poet, 'Song is like the
dews of heaven on the bosom of the desert; it cools the path of the
traveller.'”

“Friend Saracen,” said the Christian, “I blame not the love of
minstrelsy and of the GAI SCIENCE; albeit, we yield unto it even too
much room in our thoughts when they should be bent on better things.
But prayers and holy psalms are better fitting than LAIS of love, or of
wine-cups, when men walk in this Valley of the Shadow of Death, full of
fiends and demons, whom the prayers of holy men have driven forth
from the haunts of humanity to wander amidst scenes as accursed as
themselves.”

“Speak not thus of the Genii, Christian,” answered the Saracen, “for
know thou speakest to one whose line and nation drew their origin from
the immortal race which your sect fear and blaspheme.”

“I well thought,” answered the Crusader, “that your blinded race had
their descent from the foul fiend, without whose aid you would never
have been able to maintain this blessed land of Palestine against so
many valiant soldiers of God. I speak not thus of thee in particular,
Saracen, but generally of thy people and religion. Strange is it to me,
however, not that you should have the descent from the Evil One, but
that you should boast of it.”

“From whom should the bravest boast of descending, saving from him that
is bravest?” said the Saracen; “from whom should the proudest trace
their line so well as from the Dark Spirit, which would rather fall
headlong by force than bend the knee by his will? Eblis may be hated,
stranger, but he must be feared; and such as Eblis are his descendants
of Kurdistan.”

Tales of magic and of necromancy were the learning of the period, and
Sir Kenneth heard his companion's confession of diabolical descent
without any disbelief, and without much wonder; yet not without a secret
shudder at finding himself in this fearful place, in the company of
one who avouched himself to belong to such a lineage. Naturally
insusceptible, however, of fear, he crossed himself, and stoutly
demanded of the Saracen an account of the pedigree which he had boasted.
The latter readily complied.

“Know, brave stranger,” he said, “that when the cruel Zohauk, one of the
descendants of Giamschid, held the throne of Persia, he formed a league
with the Powers of Darkness, amidst the secret vaults of Istakhar,
vaults which the hands of the elementary spirits had hewn out of the
living rock long before Adam himself had an existence. Here he fed,
with daily oblations of human blood, two devouring serpents, which had
become, according to the poets, a part of himself, and to sustain whom
he levied a tax of daily human sacrifices, till the exhausted patience
of his subjects caused some to raise up the scimitar of resistance, like
the valiant Blacksmith and the victorious Feridoun, by whom the tyrant
was at length dethroned, and imprisoned for ever in the dismal caverns
of the mountain Damavend. But ere that deliverance had taken place, and
whilst the power of the bloodthirsty tyrant was at its height, the band
of ravening slaves whom he had sent forth to purvey victims for his
daily sacrifice brought to the vaults of the palace of Istakhar seven
sisters so beautiful that they seemed seven houris. These seven maidens
were the daughters of a sage, who had no treasures save those beauties
and his own wisdom. The last was not sufficient to foresee this
misfortune, the former seemed ineffectual to prevent it. The eldest
exceeded not her twentieth year, the youngest had scarce attained her
thirteenth; and so like were they to each other that they could not
have been distinguished but for the difference of height, in which they
gradually rose in easy gradation above each other, like the ascent which
leads to the gates of Paradise. So lovely were these seven sisters when
they stood in the darksome vault, disrobed of all clothing saving a
cymar of white silk, that their charms moved the hearts of those who
were not mortal. Thunder muttered, the earth shook, the wall of the
vault was rent, and at the chasm entered one dressed like a hunter, with
bow and shafts, and followed by six others, his brethren. They were tall
men, and, though dark, yet comely to behold; but their eyes had more the
glare of those of the dead than the light which lives under the eyelids
of the living. 'Zeineb,' said the leader of the band--and as he spoke
he took the eldest sister by the hand, and his voice was soft, low, and
melancholy--'I am Cothrob, king of the subterranean world, and supreme
chief of Ginnistan. I and my brethren are of those who, created out of
the pure elementary fire, disdained, even at the command of Omnipotence,
to do homage to a clod of earth, because it was called Man. Thou mayest
have heard of us as cruel, unrelenting, and persecuting. It is false. We
are by nature kind and generous; only vengeful when insulted, only cruel
when affronted. We are true to those who trust us; and we have heard the
invocations of thy father, the sage Mithrasp, who wisely worships not
alone the Origin of Good, but that which is called the Source of Evil.
You and your sisters are on the eve of death; but let each give to us
one hair from your fair tresses, in token of fealty, and we will carry
you many miles from hence to a place of safety, where you may bid
defiance to Zohauk and his ministers.' The fear of instant death, saith
the poet, is like the rod of the prophet Haroun, which devoured all
other rods when transformed into snakes before the King of Pharaoh; and
the daughters of the Persian sage were less apt than others to be
afraid of the addresses of a spirit. They gave the tribute which Cothrob
demanded, and in an instant the sisters were transported to an enchanted
castle on the mountains of Tugrut, in Kurdistan, and were never again
seen by mortal eye. But in process of time seven youths, distinguished
in the war and in the chase, appeared in the environs of the castle of
the demons. They were darker, taller, fiercer, and more resolute than
any of the scattered inhabitants of the valleys of Kurdistan; and they
took to themselves wives, and became fathers of the seven tribes of the
Kurdmans, whose valour is known throughout the universe.”

The Christian knight heard with wonder the wild tale, of which Kurdistan
still possesses the traces, and, after a moment's thought, replied,
“Verily, Sir Knight, you have spoken well--your genealogy may be dreaded
and hated, but it cannot be contemned. Neither do I any longer wonder
at your obstinacy in a false faith, since, doubtless, it is part of the
fiendish disposition which hath descended from your ancestors, those
infernal huntsmen, as you have described them, to love falsehood rather
than truth; and I no longer marvel that your spirits become high and
exalted, and vent themselves in verse and in tunes, when you approach to
the places encumbered by the haunting of evil spirits, which must excite
in you that joyous feeling which others experience when approaching the
land of their human ancestry.”

“By my father's beard, I think thou hast the right,” said the Saracen,
rather amused than offended by the freedom with which the Christian had
uttered his reflections; “for, though the Prophet (blessed be his name!)
hath sown amongst us the seed of a better faith than our ancestors
learned in the ghostly halls of Tugrut, yet we are not willing, like
other Moslemah, to pass hasty doom on the lofty and powerful elementary
spirits from whom we claim our origin. These Genii, according to our
belief and hope, are not altogether reprobate, but are still in the way
of probation, and may hereafter be punished or rewarded. Leave we this
to the mollahs and the imauns. Enough that with us the reverence for
these spirits is not altogether effaced by what we have learned from the
Koran, and that many of us still sing, in memorial of our fathers' more
ancient faith, such verses as these.”

So saying, he proceeded to chant verses, very ancient in the language
and structure, which some have thought derive their source from the
worshippers of Arimanes, the Evil Principle.


                AHRIMAN.

     Dark Ahriman, whom Irak still
     Holds origin of woe and ill!
     When, bending at thy shrine,
     We view the world with troubled eye,
     Where see we 'neath the extended sky,
     An empire matching thine!

     If the Benigner Power can yield
     A fountain in the desert field,
     Where weary pilgrims drink;
     Thine are the waves that lash the rock,
     Thine the tornado's deadly shock,
     Where countless navies sink!

     Or if he bid the soil dispense
     Balsams to cheer the sinking sense,
     How few can they deliver
     From lingering pains, or pang intense,
     Red Fever, spotted Pestilence,
     The arrows of thy quiver!

     Chief in Man's bosom sits thy sway,
     And frequent, while in words we pray
     Before another throne,
     Whate'er of specious form be there,
     The secret meaning of the prayer
     Is, Ahriman, thine own.

     Say, hast thou feeling, sense, and form,
     Thunder thy voice, thy garments storm,
     As Eastern Magi say;
     With sentient soul of hate and wrath,
     And wings to sweep thy deadly path,
     And fangs to tear thy prey?

     Or art thou mix'd in Nature's source,
     An ever-operating force,
     Converting good to ill;
     An evil principle innate,
     Contending with our better fate,
     And, oh!  victorious still?

     Howe'er it be, dispute is vain.
     On all without thou hold'st thy reign,
     Nor less on all within;
     Each mortal passion's fierce career,
     Love, hate, ambition, joy, and fear,
     Thou goadest into sin.

     Whene'er a sunny gleam appears,
     To brighten up our vale of tears,
     Thou art not distant far;
     'Mid such brief solace of our lives,
     Thou whett'st our very banquet-knives
     To tools of death and war.

     Thus, from the moment of our birth,
     Long as we linger on the earth,
     Thou rulest the fate of men;
     Thine are the pangs of life's last hour,
     And--who dare answer?--is thy power,
     Dark Spirit!  ended THEN?

     [The worthy and learned clergyman by whom this species of
     hymn has been translated desires, that, for fear of
     misconception, we should warn the reader to recollect that
     it is composed by a heathen, to whom the real causes of
     moral and physical evil are unknown, and who views their
     predominance in the system of the universe as all must view
     that appalling fact who have not the benefit of the
     Christian revelation.  On our own part, we beg to add, that
     we understand the style of the translator is more
     paraphrastic than can be approved by those who are
     acquainted with the singularly curious original.  The
     translator seems to have despaired of rendering into English
     verse the flights of Oriental poetry; and, possibly, like
     many learned and ingenious men, finding it impossible to
     discover the sense of the original, he may have tacitly
     substituted his own.]

These verses may perhaps have been the not unnatural effusion of some
half-enlightened philosopher, who, in the fabled deity, Arimanes, saw
but the prevalence of moral and physical evil; but in the ears of Sir
Kenneth of the Leopard they had a different effect, and, sung as they
were by one who had just boasted himself a descendant of demons, sounded
very like an address of worship to the arch-fiend himself. He weighed
within himself whether, on hearing such blasphemy in the very desert
where Satan had stood rebuked for demanding homage, taking an abrupt
leave of the Saracen was sufficient to testify his abhorrence; or
whether he was not rather constrained by his vow as a Crusader to defy
the infidel to combat on the spot, and leave him food for the beasts of
the wilderness, when his attention was suddenly caught by an unexpected
apparition.

The light was now verging low, yet served the knight still to discern
that they two were no longer alone in the desert, but were closely
watched by a figure of great height and very thin, which skipped over
rocks and bushes with so much agility as, added to the wild and hirsute
appearance of the individual, reminded him of the fauns and silvans,
whose images he had seen in the ancient temples of Rome. As the
single-hearted Scottishman had never for a moment doubted these gods of
the ancient Gentiles to be actually devils, so he now hesitated not
to believe that the blasphemous hymn of the Saracen had raised up an
infernal spirit.

“But what recks it?” said stout Sir Kenneth to himself; “down with the
fiend and his worshippers!”

He did not, however, think it necessary to give the same warning of
defiance to two enemies as he would unquestionably have afforded to one.
His hand was upon his mace, and perhaps the unwary Saracen would have
been paid for his Persian poetry by having his brains dashed out on the
spot, without any reason assigned for it; but the Scottish Knight was
spared from committing what would have been a sore blot in his shield
of arms. The apparition, on which his eyes had been fixed for some time,
had at first appeared to dog their path by concealing itself behind
rocks and shrubs, using those advantages of the ground with great
address, and surmounting its irregularities with surprising agility. At
length, just as the Saracen paused in his song, the figure, which was
that of a tall man clothed in goat-skins, sprung into the midst of
the path, and seized a rein of the Saracen's bridle in either hand,
confronting thus and bearing back the noble horse, which, unable to
endure the manner in which this sudden assailant pressed the long-armed
bit, and the severe curb, which, according to the Eastern fashion, was
a solid ring of iron, reared upright, and finally fell backwards on his
master, who, however, avoided the peril of the fall by lightly throwing
himself to one side.

The assailant then shifted his grasp from the bridle of the horse to the
throat of the rider, flung himself above the struggling Saracen, and,
despite of his youth and activity kept him undermost, wreathing his
long arms above those of his prisoner, who called out angrily, and yet
half-laughing at the same time--“Hamako--fool--unloose me--this passes
thy privilege--unloose me, or I will use my dagger.”

“Thy dagger!--infidel dog!” said the figure in the goat-skins, “hold it
in thy gripe if thou canst!” and in an instant he wrenched the Saracen's
weapon out of its owner's hand, and brandished it over his head.

“Help, Nazarene!” cried Sheerkohf, now seriously alarmed; “help, or the
Hamako will slay me.”

“Slay thee!” replied the dweller of the desert; “and well hast thou
merited death, for singing thy blasphemous hymns, not only to the praise
of thy false prophet, who is the foul fiend's harbinger, but to that of
the Author of Evil himself.”

The Christian Knight had hitherto looked on as one stupefied, so
strangely had this rencontre contradicted, in its progress and event,
all that he had previously conjectured. He felt, however, at length,
that it touched his honour to interfere in behalf of his discomfited
companion, and therefore addressed himself to the victorious figure in
the goat-skins.

“Whosoe'er thou art,” he said, “and whether of good or of evil, know
that I am sworn for the time to be true companion to the Saracen whom
thou holdest under thee; therefore, I pray thee to let him arise, else I
will do battle with thee in his behalf.”

“And a proper quarrel it were,” answered the Hamako, “for a Crusader to
do battle in--for the sake of an unbaptized dog, to combat one of his
own holy faith! Art thou come forth to the wilderness to fight for the
Crescent against the Cross? A goodly soldier of God art thou to listen
to those who sing the praises of Satan!”

Yet, while he spoke thus, he arose himself, and, suffering the Saracen
to rise also, returned him his cangiar, or poniard.

“Thou seest to what a point of peril thy presumption hath brought thee,”
 continued he of the goat-skins, now addressing Sheerkohf, “and by what
weak means thy practised skill and boasted agility can be foiled, when
such is Heaven's pleasure. Wherefore, beware, O Ilderim! for know that,
were there not a twinkle in the star of thy nativity which promises for
thee something that is good and gracious in Heaven's good time, we
two had not parted till I had torn asunder the throat which so lately
trilled forth blasphemies.”

“Hamako,” said the Saracen, without any appearance of resenting the
violent language and yet more violent assault to which he had been
subjected, “I pray thee, good Hamako, to beware how thou dost again urge
thy privilege over far; for though, as a good Moslem, I respect those
whom Heaven hath deprived of ordinary reason, in order to endow them
with the spirit of prophecy, yet I like not other men's hands on the
bridle of my horse, neither upon my own person. Speak, therefore, what
thou wilt, secure of any resentment from me; but gather so much sense
as to apprehend that if thou shalt again proffer me any violence, I will
strike thy shagged head from thy meagre shoulders.--and to thee, friend
Kenneth,” he added, as he remounted his steed, “I must needs say, that
in a companion through the desert, I love friendly deeds better than
fair words. Of the last thou hast given me enough; but it had been
better to have aided me more speedily in my struggle with this Hamako,
who had well-nigh taken my life in his frenzy.”

“By my faith,” said the Knight, “I did somewhat fail--was somewhat tardy
in rendering thee instant help; but the strangeness of the assailant,
the suddenness of the scene--it was as if thy wild and wicked lay had
raised the devil among us--and such was my confusion, that two or three
minutes elapsed ere I could take to my weapon.”

“Thou art but a cold and considerate friend,” said the Saracen; “and,
had the Hamako been one grain more frantic, thy companion had been slain
by thy side, to thy eternal dishonour, without thy stirring a finger in
his aid, although thou satest by, mounted, and in arms.”

“By my word, Saracen,” said the Christian, “if thou wilt have it in
plain terms, I thought that strange figure was the devil; and being of
thy lineage, I knew not what family secret you might be communicating to
each other, as you lay lovingly rolling together on the sand.”

“Thy gibe is no answer, brother Kenneth,” said the Saracen; “for know,
that had my assailant been in very deed the Prince of Darkness, thou
wert bound not the less to enter into combat with him in thy comrade's
behalf. Know, also, that whatever there may be of foul or of fiendish
about the Hamako belongs more to your lineage than to mine--this Hamako
being, in truth, the anchorite whom thou art come hither to visit.”

“This!” said Sir Kenneth, looking at the athletic yet wasted figure
before him--“this! Thou mockest, Saracen--this cannot be the venerable
Theodorick!”

“Ask himself, if thou wilt not believe me,” answered Sheerkohf; and
ere the words had left his mouth, the hermit gave evidence in his own
behalf.

“I am Theodorick of Engaddi,” he said--“I am the walker of the desert--I
am friend of the Cross, and flail of all infidels, heretics, and
devil-worshippers. Avoid ye, avoid ye! Down with Mahound, Termagaunt,
and all their adherents!”--So saying, he pulled from under his shaggy
garment a sort of flail or jointed club, bound with iron, which he
brandished round his head with singular dexterity.

“Thou seest thy saint,” said the Saracen, laughing, for the first time,
at the unmitigated astonishment with which Sir Kenneth looked on the
wild gestures and heard the wayward muttering of Theodorick, who, after
swinging his flail in every direction, apparently quite reckless whether
it encountered the head of either of his companions, finally showed
his own strength, and the soundness of the weapon, by striking into
fragments a large stone which lay near him.

“This is a madman,” said Sir Kenneth.

“Not the worse saint,” returned the Moslem, speaking according to
the well-known Eastern belief, that madmen are under the influence
of immediate inspiration. “Know, Christian, that when one eye is
extinguished, the other becomes more keen; when one hand is cut off,
the other becomes more powerful; so, when our reason in human things
is disturbed or destroyed, our view heavenward becomes more acute and
perfect.”

Here the voice of the Saracen was drowned in that of the hermit, who
began to hollo aloud in a wild, chanting tone, “I am Theodorick of
Engaddi--I am the torch-brand of the desert--I am the flail of the
infidels! The lion and the leopard shall be my comrades, and draw nigh
to my cell for shelter; neither shall the goat be afraid of their fangs.
I am the torch and the lantern--Kyrie Eleison!”

He closed his song by a short race, and ended that again by three
forward bounds, which would have done him great credit in a gymnastic
academy, but became his character of hermit so indifferently that the
Scottish Knight was altogether confounded and bewildered.

The Saracen seemed to understand him better. “You see,” he said, “that
he expects us to follow him to his cell, which, indeed, is our only
place of refuge for the night. You are the leopard, from the portrait
on your shield; I am the lion, as my name imports; and by the goat,
alluding to his garb of goat-skins, he means himself. We must keep him
in sight, however, for he is as fleet as a dromedary.”

In fact, the task was a difficult one, for though the reverend guide
stopped from time to time, and waved his hand, as if to encourage them
to come on, yet, well acquainted with all the winding dells and passes
of the desert, and gifted with uncommon activity, which, perhaps, an
unsettled state of mind kept in constant exercise, he led the knights
through chasms and along footpaths where even the light-armed Saracen,
with his well-trained barb, was in considerable risk, and where the
iron-sheathed European and his over-burdened steed found themselves in
such imminent peril as the rider would gladly have exchanged for the
dangers of a general action. Glad he was when, at length, after this
wild race, he beheld the holy man who had led it standing in front of
a cavern, with a large torch in his hand, composed of a piece of wood
dipped in bitumen, which cast a broad and flickering light, and emitted
a strong sulphureous smell.

Undeterred by the stifling vapour, the knight threw himself from
his horse and entered the cavern, which afforded small appearance of
accommodation. The cell was divided into two parts, in the outward of
which were an altar of stone and a crucifix made of reeds: this served
the anchorite for his chapel. On one side of this outward cave the
Christian knight, though not without scruple, arising from religious
reverence to the objects around, fastened up his horse, and arranged him
for the night, in imitation of the Saracen, who gave him to understand
that such was the custom of the place. The hermit, meanwhile, was busied
putting his inner apartment in order to receive his guests, and there
they soon joined him. At the bottom of the outer cave, a small aperture,
closed with a door of rough plank, led into the sleeping apartment of
the hermit, which was more commodious. The floor had been brought to a
rough level by the labour of the inhabitant, and then strewed with white
sand, which he daily sprinkled with water from a small fountain which
bubbled out of the rock in one corner, affording in that stifling
climate, refreshment alike to the ear and the taste. Mattresses, wrought
of twisted flags, lay by the side of the cell; the sides, like the
floor, had been roughly brought to shape, and several herbs and flowers
were hung around them. Two waxen torches, which the hermit lighted,
gave a cheerful air to the place, which was rendered agreeable by its
fragrance and coolness.

There were implements of labour in one corner of the apartment, in
another was a niche for a rude statue of the Virgin. A table and two
chairs showed that they must be the handiwork of the anchorite, being
different in their form from Oriental accommodations. The former was
covered, not only with reeds and pulse, but also with dried flesh, which
Theodorick assiduously placed in such arrangement as should invite the
appetite of his guests. This appearance of courtesy, though mute, and
expressed by gestures only, seemed to Sir Kenneth something entirely
irreconcilable with his former wild and violent demeanour. The movements
of the hermit were now become composed, and apparently it was only a
sense of religious humiliation which prevented his features, emaciated
as they were by his austere mode of life, from being majestic and noble.
He trod his cell as one who seemed born to rule over men, but who had
abdicated his empire to become the servant of Heaven. Still, it must
be allowed that his gigantic size, the length of his unshaven locks and
beard, and the fire of a deep-set and wild eye were rather attributes of
a soldier than of a recluse.

Even the Saracen seemed to regard the anchorite with some veneration,
while he was thus employed, and he whispered in a low tone to Sir
Kenneth, “The Hamako is now in his better mind, but he will not speak
until we have eaten--such is his vow.”

It was in silence, accordingly, that Theodorick motioned to the Scot to
take his place on one of the low chairs, while Sheerkohf placed himself,
after the custom of his nation, upon a cushion of mats. The hermit then
held up both hands, as if blessing the refreshment which he had placed
before his guests, and they proceeded to eat in silence as profound
as his own. To the Saracen this gravity was natural; and the Christian
imitated his taciturnity, while he employed his thoughts on the
singularity of his own situation, and the contrast betwixt the wild,
furious gesticulations, loud cries, and fierce actions of Theodorick,
when they first met him, and the demure, solemn, decorous assiduity with
which he now performed the duties of hospitality.

When their meal was ended, the hermit, who had not himself eaten a
morsel, removed the fragments from the table, and placing before the
Saracen a pitcher of sherbet, assigned to the Scot a flask of wine.

“Drink,” he said, “my children”--they were the first words he had
spoken--“the gifts of God are to be enjoyed, when the Giver is
remembered.”

Having said this, he retired to the outward cell, probably for
performance of his devotions, and left his guests together in the inner
apartment; when Sir Kenneth endeavoured, by various questions, to
draw from Sheerkohf what that Emir knew concerning his host. He was
interested by more than mere curiosity in these inquiries. Difficult as
it was to reconcile the outrageous demeanour of the recluse at his first
appearance with his present humble and placid behaviour, it seemed yet
more impossible to think it consistent with the high consideration in
which, according to what Sir Kenneth had learned, this hermit was held
by the most enlightened divines of the Christian world. Theodorick, the
hermit of Engaddi, had, in that character, been the correspondent of
popes and councils; to whom his letters, full of eloquent fervour,
had described the miseries imposed by the unbelievers upon the Latin
Christians in the Holy Land, in colours scarce inferior to those
employed at the Council of Clermont by the Hermit Peter, when he
preached the first Crusade. To find, in a person so reverend and so
much revered, the frantic gestures of a mad fakir, induced the Christian
knight to pause ere he could resolve to communicate to him certain
important matters, which he had in charge from some of the leaders of
the Crusade.

It had been a main object of Sir Kenneth's pilgrimage, attempted by
a route so unusual, to make such communications; but what he had that
night seen induced him to pause and reflect ere he proceeded to the
execution of his commission. From the Emir he could not extract much
information, but the general tenor was as follows:--That, as he had
heard, the hermit had been once a brave and valiant soldier, wise in
council and fortunate in battle, which last he could easily believe from
the great strength and agility which he had often seen him display; that
he had appeared at Jerusalem in the character not of a pilgrim, but in
that of one who had devoted himself to dwell for the remainder of his
life in the Holy Land. Shortly afterwards, he fixed his residence amid
the scenes of desolation where they now found him, respected by the
Latins for his austere devotion, and by the Turks and Arabs on account
of the symptoms of insanity which he displayed, and which they ascribed
to inspiration. It was from them he had the name of Hamako, which
expresses such a character in the Turkish language. Sheerkohf himself
seemed at a loss how to rank their host. He had been, he said, a wise
man, and could often for many hours together speak lessons of virtue or
wisdom, without the slightest appearance of inaccuracy. At other
times he was wild and violent, but never before had he seen him so
mischievously disposed as he had that day appeared to be. His rage was
chiefly provoked by any affront to his religion; and there was a story
of some wandering Arabs, who had insulted his worship and defaced his
altar, and whom he had on that account attacked and slain with the
short flail which he carried with him in lieu of all other weapons.
This incident had made a great noise, and it was as much the fear of the
hermit's iron flail as regard for his character as a Hamako which caused
the roving tribes to respect his dwelling and his chapel. His fame had
spread so far that Saladin had issued particular orders that he should
be spared and protected. He himself, and other Moslem lords of rank, had
visited the cell more than once, partly from curiosity, partly that they
expected from a man so learned as the Christian Hamako some insight into
the secrets of futurity. “He had,” continued the Saracen, “a rashid, or
observatory, of great height, contrived to view the heavenly bodies, and
particularly the planetary system--by whose movements and influences,
as both Christian and Moslem believed, the course of human events was
regulated, and might be predicted.”

This was the substance of the Emir Sheerkohf's information, and it left
Sir Kenneth in doubt whether the character of insanity arose from the
occasional excessive fervour of the hermit's zeal, or whether it was not
altogether fictitious, and assumed for the sake of the immunities
which it afforded. Yet it seemed that the infidels had carried their
complaisance towards him to an uncommon length, considering the
fanaticism of the followers of Mohammed, in the midst of whom he was
living, though the professed enemy of their faith. He thought also there
was more intimacy of acquaintance betwixt the hermit and the Saracen
than the words of the latter had induced him to anticipate; and it
had not escaped him that the former had called the latter by a
name different from that which he himself had assumed. All these
considerations authorized caution, if not suspicion. He determined to
observe his host closely, and not to be over-hasty in communicating with
him on the important charge entrusted to him.

“Beware, Saracen,” he said; “methinks our host's imagination wanders
as well on the subject of names as upon other matters. Thy name is
Sheerkohf, and he called thee but now by another.”

“My name, when in the tent of my father,” replied the Kurdman, “was
Ilderim, and by this I am still distinguished by many. In the field, and
to soldiers, I am known as the Lion of the Mountain, being the name my
good sword hath won for me. But hush, the Hamako comes--it is to warn us
to rest. I know his custom; none must watch him at his vigils.”

The anchorite accordingly entered, and folding his arms on his bosom as
he stood before them, said with a solemn voice, “Blessed be His name,
who hath appointed the quiet night to follow the busy day, and the calm
sleep to refresh the wearied limbs and to compose the troubled spirit!”

Both warriors replied “Amen!” and, arising from the table, prepared to
betake themselves to the couches, which their host indicated by waving
his hand, as, making a reverence to each, he again withdrew from the
apartment.

The Knight of the Leopard then disarmed himself of his heavy panoply,
his Saracen companion kindly assisting him to undo his buckler and
clasps, until he remained in the close dress of chamois leather, which
knights and men-at-arms used to wear under their harness. The Saracen,
if he had admired the strength of his adversary when sheathed in steel,
was now no less struck with the accuracy of proportion displayed in his
nervous and well-compacted figure. The knight, on the other hand, as, in
exchange of courtesy, he assisted the Saracen to disrobe himself of his
upper garments, that he might sleep with more convenience, was, on his
side, at a loss to conceive how such slender proportions and slimness of
figure could be reconciled with the vigour he had displayed in personal
contest.

Each warrior prayed ere he addressed himself to his place of rest. The
Moslem turned towards his KEBLAH, the point to which the prayer of each
follower of the Prophet was to be addressed, and murmured his heathen
orisons; while the Christian, withdrawing from the contamination of the
infidel's neighbourhood, placed his huge cross-handled sword upright,
and kneeling before it as the sign of salvation, told his rosary with
a devotion which was enhanced by the recollection of the scenes through
which he had passed, and the dangers from which he had been rescued, in
the course of the day. Both warriors, worn by toil and travel, were soon
fast asleep, each on his separate pallet.



CHAPTER IV.

Kenneth the Scot was uncertain how long his senses had been lost in
profound repose, when he was roused to recollection by a sense of
oppression on his chest, which at first suggested a flirting dream of
struggling with a powerful opponent, and at length recalled him fully
to his senses. He was about to demand who was there, when, opening his
eyes, he beheld the figure of the anchorite, wild and savage-looking as
we have described him, standing by his bedside, and pressing his right
hand upon his breast, while he held a small silver lamp in the other.

“Be silent,” said the hermit, as the prostrate knight looked up in
surprise; “I have that to say to you which yonder infidel must not
hear.”

These words he spoke in the French language, and not in the lingua
franca, or compound of Eastern and European dialects, which had hitherto
been used amongst them.

“Arise,” he continued, “put on thy mantle; speak not, but tread lightly,
and follow me.”

Sir Kenneth arose, and took his sword.

“It needs not,” answered the anchorite, in a whisper; “we are going
where spiritual arms avail much, and fleshly weapons are but as the reed
and the decayed gourd.”

The knight deposited his sword by the bedside as before, and, armed only
with his dagger, from which in this perilous country he never parted,
prepared to attend his mysterious host.

The hermit then moved slowly forwards, and was followed by the knight,
still under some uncertainty whether the dark form which glided
on before to show him the path was not, in fact, the creation of a
disturbed dream. They passed, like shadows, into the outer apartment,
without disturbing the paynim Emir, who lay still buried in repose.
Before the cross and altar, in the outward room, a lamp was still
burning, a missal was displayed, and on the floor lay a discipline, or
penitential scourge of small cord and wire, the lashes of which were
recently stained with blood--a token, no doubt, of the severe penance of
the recluse. Here Theodorick kneeled down, and pointed to the knight to
take his place beside him upon the sharp flints, which seemed placed for
the purpose of rendering the posture of reverential devotion as uneasy
as possible. He read many prayers of the Catholic Church, and chanted,
in a low but earnest voice, three of the penitential psalms. These last
he intermixed with sighs, and tears, and convulsive throbs, which bore
witness how deeply he felt the divine poetry which he recited. The
Scottish knight assisted with profound sincerity at these acts of
devotion, his opinion of his host beginning, in the meantime, to be so
much changed, that he doubted whether, from the severity of his penance
and the ardour of his prayers, he ought not to regard him as a saint;
and when they arose from the ground, he stood with reverence before
him, as a pupil before an honoured master. The hermit was, on his side,
silent and abstracted for the space of a few minutes.

“Look into yonder recess, my son,” he said, pointing to the farther
corner of the cell; “there thou wilt find a veil--bring it hither.”

The knight obeyed, and in a small aperture cut out of the wall, and
secured with a door of wicker, he found the veil inquired for. When he
brought it to the light, he discovered that it was torn, and soiled in
some places with some dark substance. The anchorite looked at it with
a deep but smothered emotion, and ere he could speak to the Scottish
knight, was compelled to vent his feelings in a convulsive groan.

“Thou art now about to look upon the richest treasure that the earth
possesses,” he at length said; “woe is me, that my eyes are unworthy to
be lifted towards it! Alas! I am but the vile and despised sign, which
points out to the wearied traveller a harbour of rest and security, but
must itself remain for ever without doors. In vain have I fled to the
very depths of the rocks, and the very bosom of the thirsty desert. Mine
enemy hath found me--even he whom I have denied has pursued me to my
fortresses.”

He paused again for a moment, and turning to the Scottish knight, said,
in a firmer tone of voice, “You bring me a greeting from Richard of
England?”

“I come from the Council of Christian Princes,” said the knight;
“but the King of England being indisposed, I am not honoured with his
Majesty's commands.”

“Your token?” demanded the recluse.

Sir Kenneth hesitated. Former suspicions, and the marks of insanity
which the hermit had formerly exhibited, rushed suddenly on his
thoughts; but how suspect a man whose manners were so saintly? “My
password,” he said at length, “is this--Kings begged of a beggar.”

“It is right,” said the hermit, while he paused. “I know you well; but
the sentinel upon his post--and mine is an important one--challenges
friend as well as foe.”

He then moved forward with the lamp, leading the way into the room which
they had left. The Saracen lay on his couch, still fast asleep. The
hermit paused by his side, and looked down on him.

“He sleeps,” he said, “in darkness, and must not be awakened.”

The attitude of the Emir did indeed convey the idea of profound repose.
One arm, flung across his body, as he lay with his face half turned to
the wall, concealed, with its loose and long sleeve, the greater part
of his face; but the high forehead was yet visible. Its nerves, which
during his waking hours were so uncommonly active, were now motionless,
as if the face had been composed of dark marble, and his long silken
eyelashes closed over his piercing and hawklike eyes. The open and
relaxed hand, and the deep, regular, and soft breathing, all gave tokens
of the most profound repose. The slumberer formed a singular group along
with the tall forms of the hermit in his shaggy dress of goat-skins,
bearing the lamp, and the knight in his close leathern coat--the former
with an austere expression of ascetic gloom, the latter with anxious
curiosity deeply impressed on his manly features.

“He sleeps soundly,” said the hermit, in the same low tone as before;
and repeating the words, though he had changed the meaning from that
which is literal to a metaphorical sense--“he sleeps in darkness, but
there shall be for him a dayspring.--O Ilderim, thy waking thoughts
are yet as vain and wild as those which are wheeling their giddy dance
through thy sleeping brain; but the trumpet shall be heard, and the
dream shall be dissolved.”

So saying, and making the knight a sign to follow him, the hermit went
towards the altar, and passing behind it, pressed a spring, which,
opening without noise, showed a small iron door wrought in the side
of the cavern, so as to be almost imperceptible, unless upon the most
severe scrutiny. The hermit, ere he ventured fully to open the door,
dropped some oil on the hinges, which the lamp supplied. A small
staircase, hewn in the rock, was discovered, when the iron door was at
length completely opened.

“Take the veil which I hold,” said the hermit, in a melancholy tone,
“and blind mine eyes; For I may not look on the treasure which thou art
presently to behold, without sin and presumption.”

Without reply, the knight hastily muffled the recluse's head in the
veil, and the latter began to ascend the staircase as one too much
accustomed to the way to require the use of light, while at the same
time he held the lamp to the Scot, who followed him for many steps up
the narrow ascent. At length they rested in a small vault of irregular
form, in one nook of which the staircase terminated, while in another
corner a corresponding stair was seen to continue the ascent. In a
third angle was a Gothic door, very rudely ornamented with the usual
attributes of clustered columns and carving, and defended by a wicket,
strongly guarded with iron, and studded with large nails. To this
last point the hermit directed his steps, which seemed to falter as he
approached it.

“Put off thy shoes,” he said to his attendant; “the ground on which
thou standest is holy. Banish from thy innermost heart each profane and
carnal thought, for to harbour such while in this place were a deadly
impiety.”

The knight laid aside his shoes as he was commanded, and the hermit
stood in the meanwhile as if communing with his soul in secret prayer,
and when he again moved, commanded the knight to knock at the wicket
three times. He did so. The door opened spontaneously--at least Sir
Kenneth beheld no one--and his senses were at once assailed by a stream
of the purest light, and by a strong and almost oppressive sense of the
richest perfumes. He stepped two or three paces back, and it was the
space of a minute ere he recovered the dazzling and overpowering effects
of the sudden change from darkness to light.

When he entered the apartment in which this brilliant lustre was
displayed, he perceived that the light proceeded from a combination of
silver lamps, fed with purest oil, and sending forth the richest odours,
hanging by silver chains from the roof of a small Gothic chapel, hewn,
like most part of the hermit's singular mansion, out of the sound and
solid rock. But whereas, in every other place which Sir Kenneth had
seen, the labour employed upon the rock had been of the simplest and
coarsest description, it had in this chapel employed the invention and
the chisels of the most able architects. The groined roofs rose from six
columns on each side, carved with the rarest skill; and the manner in
which the crossings of the concave arches were bound together, as it
were, with appropriate ornaments, were all in the finest tone of the
architecture of the age. Corresponding to the line of pillars, there
were on each side six richly-wrought niches, each of which contained the
image of one of the twelve apostles.

At the upper and eastern end of the chapel stood the altar, behind
which a very rich curtain of Persian silk, embroidered deeply with gold,
covered a recess, containing, unquestionably, some image or relic of no
ordinary sanctity, in honour of which this singular place of worship
had been erected, Under the persuasion that this must be the case, the
knight advanced to the shrine, and kneeling down before it, repeated his
devotions with fervency, during which his attention was disturbed by the
curtain being suddenly raised, or rather pulled aside, how or by whom he
saw not; but in the niche which was thus disclosed he beheld a cabinet
of silver and ebony, with a double folding-door, the whole formed into
the miniature resemblance of a Gothic church.

As he gazed with anxious curiosity on the shrine, the two folding-doors
also flew open, discovering a large piece of wood, on which were
blazoned the words, VERA CRUX; at the same time a choir of female voices
sung GLORIA PATRI. The instant the strain had ceased, the shrine was
closed, and the curtain again drawn, and the knight who knelt at the
altar might now continue his devotions undisturbed, in honour of the
holy relic which had been just disclosed to his view. He did this under
the profound impression of one who had witnessed, with his own eyes, an
awful evidence of the truth of his religion; and it was some time ere,
concluding his orisons, he arose, and ventured to look around him for
the hermit, who had guided him to this sacred and mysterious spot. He
beheld him, his head still muffled in the veil which he had himself
wrapped around it, crouching, like a rated hound, upon the threshold of
the chapel; but, apparently, without venturing to cross it--the holiest
reverence, the most penitential remorse, was expressed by his posture,
which seemed that of a man borne down and crushed to the earth by the
burden of his inward feelings. It seemed to the Scot that only the
sense of the deepest penitence, remorse, and humiliation could have thus
prostrated a frame so strong and a spirit so fiery.

He approached him as if to speak; but the recluse anticipated his
purpose, murmuring in stifled tones, from beneath the fold in which his
head was muffled, and which sounded like a voice proceeding from the
cerements of a corpse,--“Abide, abide--happy thou that mayest--the
vision is not yet ended.” So saying, he reared himself from the ground,
drew back from the threshold on which he had hitherto lain prostrate,
and closed the door of the chapel, which, secured by a spring bolt
within, the snap of which resounded through the place, appeared so much
like a part of the living rock from which the cavern was hewn, that
Kenneth could hardly discern where the aperture had been. He was now
alone in the lighted chapel which contained the relic to which he had
lately rendered his homage, without other arms than his dagger, or other
companion than his pious thoughts and dauntless courage.

Uncertain what was next to happen, but resolved to abide the course of
events, Sir Kenneth paced the solitary chapel till about the time of the
earliest cock-crowing. At this dead season, when night and morning met
together, he heard, but from what quarter he could not discover, the
sound of such a small silver bell as is rung at the elevation of the
host in the ceremony, or sacrifice, as it has been called, of the mass.
The hour and the place rendered the sound fearfully solemn, and, bold as
he was, the knight withdrew himself into the farther nook of the
chapel, at the end opposite to the altar, in order to observe, without
interruption, the consequences of this unexpected signal.

He did not wait long ere the silken curtain was again withdrawn, and the
relic again presented to his view. As he sunk reverentially on his knee,
he heard the sound of the lauds, or earliest office of the Catholic
Church, sung by female voices, which united together in the performance
as they had done in the former service. The knight was soon aware that
the voices were no longer stationary in the distance, but approached the
chapel and became louder, when a door, imperceptible when closed, like
that by which he had himself entered, opened on the other side of the
vault, and gave the tones of the choir more room to swell along the
ribbed arches of the roof.

The knight fixed his eyes on the opening with breathless anxiety, and,
continuing to kneel in the attitude of devotion which the place and
scene required, expected the consequence of these preparations. A
procession appeared about to issue from the door. First, four beautiful
boys, whose arms, necks, and legs were bare, showing the bronze
complexion of the East, and contrasting with the snow-white tunics
which they wore, entered the chapel by two and two. The first pair bore
censers, which they swung from side to side, adding double fragrance
to the odours with which the chapel already was impregnated. The second
pair scattered flowers.

After these followed, in due and majestic order, the females who
composed the choir--six, who from their black scapularies, and black
veils over their white garments, appeared to be professed nuns of the
order of Mount Carmel; and as many whose veils, being white, argued them
to be novices, or occasional inhabitants in the cloister, who were
not as yet bound to it by vows. The former held in their hands large
rosaries, while the younger and lighter figures who followed carried
each a chaplet of red and white roses. They moved in procession around
the chapel, without appearing to take the slightest notice of Kenneth,
although passing so near him that their robes almost touched him, while
they continued to sing. The knight doubted not that he was in one of
those cloisters where the noble Christian maidens had formerly openly
devoted themselves to the services of the church. Most of them had been
suppressed since the Mohammedans had reconquered Palestine, but many,
purchasing connivance by presents, or receiving it from the clemency
or contempt of the victors, still continued to observe in private the
ritual to which their vows had consecrated them. Yet, though Kenneth
knew this to be the case, the solemnity of the place and hour, the
surprise at the sudden appearance of these votaresses, and the
visionary manner in which they moved past him, had such influence on his
imagination that he could scarce conceive that the fair procession
which he beheld was formed of creatures of this world, so much did
they resemble a choir of supernatural beings, rendering homage to the
universal object of adoration.

Such was the knight's first idea, as the procession passed him, scarce
moving, save just sufficiently to continue their progress; so that,
seen by the shadowy and religious light which the lamps shed through the
clouds of incense which darkened the apartment, they appeared rather to
glide than to walk.

But as a second time, in surrounding the chapel, they passed the spot on
which he kneeled, one of the white-stoled maidens, as she glided by him,
detached from the chaplet which she carried a rosebud, which dropped
from her fingers, perhaps unconsciously, on the foot of Sir Kenneth. The
knight started as if a dart had suddenly struck his person; for, when
the mind is wound up to a high pitch of feeling and expectation,
the slightest incident, if unexpected, gives fire to the train
which imagination has already laid. But he suppressed his emotion,
recollecting how easily an incident so indifferent might have happened,
and that it was only the uniform monotony of the movement of the
choristers which made the incident in the slightest degree remarkable.

Still, while the procession, for the third time, surrounded the chapel,
the thoughts and the eyes of Kenneth followed exclusively the one among
the novices who had dropped the rosebud. Her step, her face, her form
were so completely assimilated to the rest of the choristers that it
was impossible to perceive the least marks of individuality; and yet
Kenneth's heart throbbed like a bird that would burst from its cage, as
if to assure him, by its sympathetic suggestions, that the female who
held the right file on the second rank of the novices was dearer to him,
not only than all the rest that were present, but than the whole sex
besides. The romantic passion of love, as it was cherished, and indeed
enjoined, by the rules of chivalry, associated well with the no less
romantic feelings of devotion; and they might be said much more to
enhance than to counteract each other. It was, therefore, with a glow
of expectation that had something even of a religious character that
Sir Kenneth, his sensations thrilling from his heart to the ends of
his fingers, expected some second sign of the presence of one who, he
strongly fancied, had already bestowed on him the first. Short as
the space was during which the procession again completed a third
perambulation of the chapel, it seemed an eternity to Kenneth. At length
the form which he had watched with such devoted attention drew nigh.
There was no difference betwixt that shrouded figure and the others,
with whom it moved in concert and in unison, until, just as she passed
for the third time the kneeling Crusader, a part of a little and
well-proportioned hand, so beautifully formed as to give the highest
idea of the perfect proportions of the form to which it belonged, stole
through the folds of the gauze, like a moonbeam through the fleecy cloud
of a summer night, and again a rosebud lay at the feet of the Knight of
the Leopard.

This second intimation could not be accidental---it could not be
fortuitous, the resemblance of that half-seen but beautiful female hand
with one which his lips had once touched, and, while they touched it,
had internally sworn allegiance to the lovely owner. Had further proof
been wanting, there was the glimmer of that matchless ruby ring on that
snow-white finger, whose invaluable worth Kenneth would yet have prized
less than the slightest sign which that finger could have made; and,
veiled too, as she was, he might see, by chance or by favour, a stray
curl of the dark tresses, each hair of which was dearer to him a hundred
times than a chain of massive gold. It was the lady of his love! But
that she should be here--in the savage and sequestered desert--among
vestals, who rendered themselves habitants of wilds and of caverns, that
they might perform in secret those Christian rites which they dared
not assist in openly; that this should be so, in truth and in reality,
seemed too incredible--it must be a dream--a delusive trance of the
imagination. While these thoughts passed through the mind of Kenneth,
the same passage, by which the procession had entered the chapel,
received them on their return. The young sacristans, the sable nuns,
vanished successively through the open door. At length she from whom he
had received this double intimation passed also; yet, in passing, turned
her head, slightly indeed, but perceptibly, towards the place where he
remained fixed as an image. He marked the last wave of her veil--it was
gone--and a darkness sunk upon his soul, scarce less palpable than that
which almost immediately enveloped his external sense; for the last
chorister had no sooner crossed the threshold of the door than it shut
with a loud sound, and at the same instant the voices of the choir were
silent, the lights of the chapel were at once extinguished, and Sir
Kenneth remained solitary and in total darkness. But to Kenneth,
solitude, and darkness, and the uncertainty of his mysterious situation
were as nothing--he thought not of them--cared not for them--cared for
nought in the world save the flitting vision which had just glided past
him, and the tokens of her favour which she had bestowed. To grope on
the floor for the buds which she had dropped--to press them to his lips,
to his bosom, now alternately, now together--to rivet his lips to the
cold stones on which, as near as he could judge, she had so lately
stepped--to play all the extravagances which strong affection suggests
and vindicates to those who yield themselves up to it, were but the
tokens of passionate love common to all ages. But it was peculiar to the
times of chivalry that, in his wildest rapture, the knight imagined of
no attempt to follow or to trace the object of such romantic attachment;
that he thought of her as of a deity, who, having deigned to show
herself for an instant to her devoted worshipper, had again returned
to the darkness of her sanctuary--or as an influential planet, which,
having darted in some auspicious minute one favourable ray, wrapped
itself again in its veil of mist. The motions of the lady of his love
were to him those of a superior being, who was to move without watch or
control, rejoice him by her appearance, or depress him by her absence,
animate him by her kindness, or drive him to despair by her cruelty--all
at her own free will, and without other importunity or remonstrance than
that expressed by the most devoted services of the heart and sword of
the champion, whose sole object in life was to fulfil her commands, and,
by the splendour of his own achievements, to exalt her fame.

Such were the rules of chivalry, and of the love which was its ruling
principle. But Sir Kenneth's attachment was rendered romantic by other
and still more peculiar circumstances. He had never even heard the sound
of his lady's voice, though he had often beheld her beauty with rapture.
She moved in a circle which his rank of knighthood permitted him
indeed to approach, but not to mingle with; and highly as he stood
distinguished for warlike skill and enterprise, still the poor Scottish
soldier was compelled to worship his divinity at a distance almost as
great as divides the Persian from the sun which he adores. But when was
the pride of woman too lofty to overlook the passionate devotion of
a lover, however inferior in degree? Her eye had been on him in the
tournament, her ear had heard his praises in the report of the battles
which were daily fought; and while count, duke, and lord contended
for her grace, it flowed, unwillingly perhaps at first, or even
unconsciously, towards the poor Knight of the Leopard, who, to support
his rank, had little besides his sword. When she looked, and when she
listened, the lady saw and heard enough to encourage her in a partiality
which had at first crept on her unawares. If a knight's personal beauty
was praised, even the most prudish dames of the military court of
England would make an exception in favour of the Scottish Kenneth;
and it oftentimes happened that, notwithstanding the very considerable
largesses which princes and peers bestowed on the minstrels, an
impartial spirit of independence would seize the poet, and the harp was
swept to the heroism of one who had neither palfreys nor garments to
bestow in guerdon of his applause.

The moments when she listened to the praises of her lover became
gradually more and more dear to the high-born Edith, relieving the
flattery with which her ear was weary, and presenting to her a subject
of secret contemplation, more worthy, as he seemed by general report,
than those who surpassed him in rank and in the gifts of fortune. As her
attention became constantly, though cautiously, fixed on Sir Kenneth,
she grew more and more convinced of his personal devotion to herself and
more and more certain in her mind that in Kenneth of Scotland she beheld
the fated knight doomed to share with her through weal and woe--and the
prospect looked gloomy and dangerous--the passionate attachment to which
the poets of the age ascribed such universal dominion, and which its
manners and morals placed nearly on the same rank with devotion itself.

Let us not disguise the truth from our readers. When Edith became aware
of the state of her own sentiments, chivalrous as were her sentiments,
becoming a maiden not distant from the throne of England--gratified as
her pride must have been with the mute though unceasing homage rendered
to her by the knight whom she had distinguished, there were moments
when the feelings of the woman, loving and beloved, murmured against the
restraints of state and form by which she was surrounded, and when she
almost blamed the timidity of her lover, who seemed resolved not to
infringe them. The etiquette, to use a modern phrase, of birth and rank,
had drawn around her a magical circle, beyond which Sir Kenneth might
indeed bow and gaze, but within which he could no more pass than an
evoked spirit can transgress the boundaries prescribed by the rod of a
powerful enchanter. The thought involuntarily pressed on her that she
herself must venture, were it but the point of her fairy foot, beyond
the prescribed boundary, if she ever hoped to give a lover so reserved
and bashful an opportunity of so slight a favour as but to salute her
shoe-tie. There was an example--the noted precedent of the “King's
daughter of Hungary,” who thus generously encouraged the “squire of low
degree;” and Edith, though of kingly blood, was no king's daughter, any
more than her lover was of low degree--fortune had put no such extreme
barrier in obstacle to their affections. Something, however, within
the maiden's bosom--that modest pride which throws fetters even on love
itself forbade her, notwithstanding the superiority of her condition, to
make those advances, which, in every case, delicacy assigns to the other
sex; above all, Sir Kenneth was a knight so gentle and honourable, so
highly accomplished, as her imagination at least suggested, together
with the strictest feelings of what was due to himself and to her,
that however constrained her attitude might be while receiving his
adorations, like the image of some deity, who is neither supposed to
feel nor to reply to the homage of its votaries, still the idol feared
that to step prematurely from her pedestal would be to degrade herself
in the eyes of her devoted worshipper.

Yet the devout adorer of an actual idol can even discover signs of
approbation in the rigid and immovable features of a marble image;
and it is no wonder that something, which could be as favourably
interpreted, glanced from the bright eye of the lovely Edith, whose
beauty, indeed, consisted rather more in that very power of expression,
than an absolute regularity of contour or brilliancy of complexion. Some
slight marks of distinction had escaped from her, notwithstanding her
own jealous vigilance, else how could Sir Kenneth have so readily and
so undoubtingly recognized the lovely hand, of which scarce two fingers
were visible from under the veil, or how could he have rested so
thoroughly assured that two flowers, successively dropped on the spot,
were intended as a recognition on the part of his lady-love? By what
train of observation--by what secret signs, looks, or gestures--by what
instinctive freemasonry of love, this degree of intelligence came to
subsist between Edith and her lover, we cannot attempt to trace; for we
are old, and such slight vestiges of affection, quickly discovered by
younger eyes, defy the power of ours. Enough that such affection
did subsist between parties who had never even spoken to one
another--though, on the side of Edith, it was checked by a deep sense of
the difficulties and dangers which must necessarily attend the further
progress of their attachment; and upon that of the knight by a thousand
doubts and fears lest he had overestimated the slight tokens of the
lady's notice, varied, as they necessarily were, by long intervals
of apparent coldness, during which either the fear of exciting the
observation of others, and thus drawing danger upon her lover, or that
of sinking in his esteem by seeming too willing to be won, made her
behave with indifference, and as if unobservant of his presence.

This narrative, tedious perhaps, but which the story renders necessary,
may serve to explain the state of intelligence, if it deserves so strong
a name, betwixt the lovers, when Edith's unexpected appearance in the
chapel produced so powerful an effect on the feelings of her knight.



CHAPTER V.

     Their necromantic forms in vain
     Haunt us on the tented plain;
     We bid these spectre shapes avaunt,
     Ashtaroth and Termagaunt.     WARTON.

The most profound silence, the deepest darkness, continued to brood for
more than an hour over the chapel in which we left the Knight of the
Leopard still kneeling, alternately expressing thanks to Heaven and
gratitude to his lady for the boon which had been vouchsafed to him.
His own safety, his own destiny, for which he was at all times little
anxious, had not now the weight of a grain of dust in his reflections.
He was in the neighbourhood of Lady Edith; he had received tokens of her
grace; he was in a place hallowed by relics of the most awful sanctity.
A Christian soldier, a devoted lover, could fear nothing, think of
nothing, but his duty to Heaven and his devoir to his lady.

At the lapse of the space of time which we have noticed, a shrill
whistle, like that with which a falconer calls his hawk, was heard to
ring sharply through the vaulted chapel. It was a sound ill suited to
the place, and reminded Sir Kenneth how necessary it was he should be
upon his guard. He started from his knee, and laid his hand upon his
poniard. A creaking sound, as of a screw or pulleys, succeeded, and a
light streaming upwards, as from an opening in the floor, showed that
a trap-door had been raised or depressed. In less than a minute a long,
skinny arm, partly naked, partly clothed in a sleeve of red samite,
arose out of the aperture, holding a lamp as high as it could stretch
upwards, and the figure to which the arm belonged ascended step by step
to the level of the chapel floor. The form and face of the being who
thus presented himself were those of a frightful dwarf, with a large
head, a cap fantastically adorned with three peacock feathers, a
dress of red samite, the richness of which rendered his ugliness more
conspicuous, distinguished by gold bracelets and armlets, and a white
silk sash, in which he wore a gold-hilted dagger. This singular figure
had in his left hand a kind of broom. So soon as he had stepped from
the aperture through which he arose, he stood still, and, as if to show
himself more distinctly, moved the lamp which he held slowly over
his face and person, successively illuminating his wild and fantastic
features, and his misshapen but nervous limbs. Though disproportioned in
person, the dwarf was not so distorted as to argue any want of strength
or activity. While Sir Kenneth gazed on this disagreeable object, the
popular creed occurred to his remembrance concerning the gnomes or
earthly spirits which make their abode in the caverns of the earth; and
so much did this figure correspond with ideas he had formed of their
appearance, that he looked on it with disgust, mingled not indeed with
fear, but that sort of awe which the presence of a supernatural creature
may infuse into the most steady bosom.

The dwarf again whistled, and summoned from beneath a companion. This
second figure ascended in the same manner as the first; but it was
a female arm in this second instance which upheld the lamp from the
subterranean vault out of which these presentments arose, and it was a
female form, much resembling the first in shape and proportions,
which slowly emerged from the floor. Her dress was also of red samite,
fantastically cut and flounced, as if she had been dressed for some
exhibition of mimes or jugglers; and with the same minuteness which her
predecessor had exhibited, she passed the lamp over her face and person,
which seemed to rival the male's in ugliness. But with all this most
unfavourable exterior, there was one trait in the features of both which
argued alertness and intelligence in the most uncommon degree. This
arose from the brilliancy of their eyes, which, deep-set beneath black
and shaggy brows, gleamed with a lustre which, like that in the eye
of the toad, seemed to make some amends for the extreme ugliness of
countenance and person.

Sir Kenneth remained as if spellbound, while this unlovely pair, moving
round the chapel close to each other, appeared to perform the duty of
sweeping it, like menials; but as they used only one hand, the floor was
not much benefited by the exercise, which they plied with such oddity of
gestures and manner as befitted their bizarre and fantastic appearance.
When they approached near to the knight in the course of their
occupation, they ceased to use their brooms; and placing themselves side
by side, directly opposite to Sir Kenneth, they again slowly shifted the
lights which they held, so as to allow him distinctly to survey features
which were not rendered more agreeable by being brought nearer, and to
observe the extreme quickness and keenness with which their black and
glittering eyes flashed back the light of the lamps. They then turned
the gleam of both lights upon the knight, and having accurately surveyed
him, turned their faces to each other, and set up a loud, yelling laugh,
which resounded in his ears. The sound was so ghastly that Sir Kenneth
started at hearing it, and hastily demanded, in the name of God, who
they were who profaned that holy place with such antic gestures and
elritch exclamations.

“I am the dwarf Nectabanus,” said the abortion-seeming male, in a voice
corresponding to his figure, and resembling the voice of the night-crow
more than any sound which is heard by daylight.

“And I am Guenevra, his lady and his love,” replied the female, in tones
which, being shriller, were yet wilder than those of her companion.

“Wherefore are you here?” again demanded the knight, scarcely yet
assured that they were human beings which he saw before him.

“I am,” replied the male dwarf, with much assumed gravity and dignity,
“the twelfth Imaum. I am Mohammed Mohadi, the guide and the conductor of
the faithful. A hundred horses stand ready saddled for me and my train
at the Holy City, and as many at the City of Refuge. I am he who shall
bear witness, and this is one of my houris.”

“Thou liest!” answered the female, interrupting her companion, in tones
yet shriller than his own; “I am none of thy houris, and thou art no
such infidel trash as the Mohammed of whom thou speakest. May my curse
rest upon his coffin! I tell thee, thou ass of Issachar, thou art King
Arthur of Britain, whom the fairies stole away from the field of Avalon;
and I am Dame Guenevra, famed for her beauty.”

“But in truth, noble sir,” said the male, “we are distressed princes,
dwelling under the wing of King Guy of Jerusalem, until he was driven
out from his own nest by the foul infidels--Heaven's bolts consume
them!”

“Hush,” said a voice from the side upon which the knight had
entered--“hush, fools, and begone; your ministry is ended.”

The dwarfs had no sooner heard the command than, gibbering in discordant
whispers to each other, they blew out their lights at once, and left the
knight in utter darkness, which, when the pattering of their retiring
feet had died away, was soon accompanied by its fittest companion, total
silence.

The knight felt the departure of these unfortunate creatures a relief.
He could not, from their language, manners, and appearance, doubt that
they belonged to the degraded class of beings whom deformity of person
and weakness of intellect recommended to the painful situation of
appendages to great families, where their personal appearance and
imbecility were food for merriment to the household. Superior in no
respect to the ideas and manners of his time, the Scottish knight might,
at another period, have been much amused by the mummery of these poor
effigies of humanity; but now their appearance, gesticulations, and
language broke the train of deep and solemn feeling with which he was
impressed, and he rejoiced in the disappearance of the unhappy objects.

A few minutes after they had retired, the door at which he had entered
opened slowly, and remaining ajar, discovered a faint light arising from
a lantern placed upon the threshold. Its doubtful and wavering gleam
showed a dark form reclined beside the entrance, but without its
precincts, which, on approaching it more nearly, he recognized to be the
hermit, crouching in the same humble posture in which he had at first
laid himself down, and which, doubtless, he had retained during the
whole time of his guest's continuing in the chapel.

“All is over,” said the hermit, as he heard the knight approaching, “and
the most wretched of earthly sinners, with him who should think himself
most honoured and most happy among the race of humanity, must retire
from this place. Take the light, and guide me down the descent, for I
must not uncover my eyes until I am far from this hallowed spot.”

The Scottish knight obeyed in silence, for a solemn and yet ecstatic
sense of what he had seen had silenced even the eager workings of
curiosity. He led the way, with considerable accuracy, through the
various secret passages and stairs by which they had ascended, until at
length they found themselves in the outward cell of the hermit's cavern.

“The condemned criminal is restored to his dungeon, reprieved from one
miserable day to another, until his awful Judge shall at length appoint
the well-deserved sentence to be carried into execution.”

As the hermit spoke these words, he laid aside the veil with which his
eyes had been bound, and looked at it with a suppressed and hollow sigh.
No sooner had he restored it to the crypt from which he had caused the
Scot to bring it, than he said hastily and sternly to his companion;
“Begone, begone--to rest, to rest. You may sleep--you can sleep--I
neither can nor may.”

Respecting the profound agitation with which this was spoken, the knight
retired into the inner cell; but casting back his eye as he left the
exterior grotto, he beheld the anchorite stripping his shoulders with
frantic haste of their shaggy mantle, and ere he could shut the frail
door which separated the two compartments of the cavern, he heard
the clang of the scourge and the groans of the penitent under his
self-inflicted penance. A cold shudder came over the knight as he
reflected what could be the foulness of the sin, what the depth of the
remorse, which, apparently, such severe penance could neither cleanse
nor assuage. He told his beads devoutly, and flung himself on his rude
couch, after a glance at the still sleeping Moslem, and, wearied by the
various scenes of the day and the night, soon slept as sound as infancy.
Upon his awaking in the morning, he held certain conferences with the
hermit upon matters of importance, and the result of their intercourse
induced him to remain for two days longer in the grotto. He was regular,
as became a pilgrim, in his devotional exercises, but was not again
admitted to the chapel in which he had seen such wonders.



CHAPTER VI.

     Now change the scene--and let the trumpets sound,
     For we must rouse the lion from his lair.  OLD PLAY.

The scene must change, as our programme has announced, from the mountain
wilderness of Jordan to the camp of King Richard of England, then
stationed betwixt Jean d'Acre and Ascalon, and containing that army with
which he of the lion heart had promised himself a triumphant march
to Jerusalem, and in which he would probably have succeeded, if not
hindered by the jealousies of the Christian princes engaged in the same
enterprise, and the offence taken by them at the uncurbed haughtiness
of the English monarch, and Richard's unveiled contempt for his brother
sovereigns, who, his equals in rank, were yet far his inferiors
in courage, hardihood, and military talents. Such discords, and
particularly those betwixt Richard and Philip of France, created
disputes and obstacles which impeded every active measure proposed by
the heroic though impetuous Richard, while the ranks of the Crusaders
were daily thinned, not only by the desertion of individuals, but of
entire bands, headed by their respective feudal leaders, who withdrew
from a contest in which they had ceased to hope for success.

The effects of the climate became, as usual, fatal to soldiers from
the north, and the more so that the dissolute license of the Crusaders,
forming a singular contrast to the principles and purpose of their
taking up arms, rendered them more easy victims to the insalubrious
influence of burning heat and chilling dews. To these discouraging
causes of loss was to be added the sword of the enemy. Saladin, than
whom no greater name is recorded in Eastern history, had learned, to
his fatal experience, that his light-armed followers were little able to
meet in close encounter with the iron-clad Franks, and had been taught,
at the same time, to apprehend and dread the adventurous character of
his antagonist Richard. But if his armies were more than once routed
with great slaughter, his numbers gave the Saracen the advantage in
those lighter skirmishes, of which many were inevitable.

As the army of his assailants decreased, the enterprises of the Sultan
became more numerous and more bold in this species of petty warfare. The
camp of the Crusaders was surrounded, and almost besieged, by clouds of
light cavalry, resembling swarms of wasps, easily crushed when they are
once grasped, but furnished with wings to elude superior strength, and
stings to inflict harm and mischief. There was perpetual warfare of
posts and foragers, in which many valuable lives were lost, without
any corresponding object being gained; convoys were intercepted, and
communications were cut off. The Crusaders had to purchase the means
of sustaining life, by life itself; and water, like that of the well of
Bethlehem, longed for by King David, one of its ancient monarchs, was
then, as before, only obtained by the expenditure of blood.

These evils were in a great measure counterbalanced by the stern
resolution and restless activity of King Richard, who, with some of his
best knights, was ever on horseback, ready to repair to any point where
danger occurred, and often not only bringing unexpected succour to the
Christians, but discomfiting the infidels when they seemed most secure
of victory. But even the iron frame of Coeur de Lion could not support
without injury the alternations of the unwholesome climate, joined to
ceaseless exertions of body and mind. He became afflicted with one of
those slow and wasting fevers peculiar to Asia, and in despite of his
great strength and still greater courage, grew first unfit to mount on
horseback, and then unable to attend the councils of war which were from
time to time held by the Crusaders. It was difficult to say whether this
state of personal inactivity was rendered more galling or more endurable
to the English monarch by the resolution of the council to engage in a
truce of thirty days with the Sultan Saladin; for on the one hand, if he
was incensed at the delay which this interposed to the progress of the
great enterprise, he was, on the other, somewhat consoled by knowing
that others were not acquiring laurels while he remained inactive upon a
sick-bed.

That, however, which Coeur de Lion could least excuse was the general
inactivity which prevailed in the camp of the Crusaders so soon as his
illness assumed a serious aspect; and the reports which he extracted
from his unwilling attendants gave him to understand that the hopes of
the host had abated in proportion to his illness, and that the interval
of truce was employed, not in recruiting their numbers, reanimating
their courage, fostering their spirit of conquest, and preparing for a
speedy and determined advance upon the Holy City, which was the
object of their expedition, but in securing the camp occupied by their
diminished followers with trenches, palisades, and other fortifications,
as if preparing rather to repel an attack from a powerful enemy so soon
as hostilities should recommence, than to assume the proud character of
conquerors and assailants.

The English king chafed under these reports, like the imprisoned lion
viewing his prey from the iron barriers of his cage. Naturally rash
and impetuous, the irritability of his temper preyed on itself. He was
dreaded by his attendants and even the medical assistants feared to
assume the necessary authority which a physician, to do justice to his
patient, must needs exercise over him. One faithful baron, who, perhaps,
from the congenial nature of his disposition, was devoutly attached to
the King's person, dared alone to come between the dragon and his wrath,
and quietly, but firmly, maintained a control which no other dared
assume over the dangerous invalid, and which Thomas de Multon only
exercised because he esteemed his sovereign's life and honour more than
he did the degree of favour which he might lose, or even the risk
which he might incur, in nursing a patient so intractable, and whose
displeasure was so perilous.

Sir Thomas was the Lord of Gilsland, in Cumberland, and in an age
when surnames and titles were not distinctly attached, as now, to the
individuals who bore them, he was called by the Normans the Lord de
Vaux; and in English by the Saxons, who clung to their native language,
and were proud of the share of Saxon blood in this renowned warrior's
veins, he was termed Thomas, or, more familiarly, Thom of the Gills,
or Narrow Valleys, from which his extensive domains derived their
well-known appellation.

This chief had been exercised in almost all the wars, whether waged
betwixt England and Scotland, or amongst the various domestic factions
which then tore the former country asunder, and in all had been
distinguished, as well from his military conduct as his personal
prowess. He was, in other respects, a rude soldier, blunt and careless
in his bearing, and taciturn--nay, almost sullen--in his habits of
society, and seeming, at least, to disclaim all knowledge of policy and
of courtly art. There were men, however, who pretended to look deeply
into character, who asserted that the Lord de Vaux was not less shrewd
and aspiring than he was blunt and bold, and who thought that, while he
assimilated himself to the king's own character of blunt hardihood, it
was, in some degree at least, with an eye to establish his favour, and
to gratify his own hopes of deep-laid ambition. But no one cared to
thwart his schemes, if such he had, by rivalling him in the dangerous
occupation of daily attendance on the sick-bed of a patient whose
disease was pronounced infectious, and more especially when it was
remembered that the patient was Coeur de Lion, suffering under all the
furious impatience of a soldier withheld from battle, and a sovereign
sequestered from authority; and the common soldiers, at least in the
English army, were generally of opinion that De Vaux attended on
the King like comrade upon comrade, in the honest and disinterested
frankness of military friendship contracted between the partakers of
daily dangers.

It was on the decline of a Syrian day that Richard lay on his couch of
sickness, loathing it as much in mind as his illness made it irksome to
his body. His bright blue eye, which at all times shone with uncommon
keenness and splendour, had its vivacity augmented by fever and mental
impatience, and glanced from among his curled and unshorn locks of
yellow hair as fitfully and as vividly as the last gleams of the sun
shoot through the clouds of an approaching thunderstorm, which still,
however, are gilded by its beams. His manly features showed the
progress of wasting illness, and his beard, neglected and untrimmed,
had overgrown both lips and chin. Casting himself from side to side, now
clutching towards him the coverings, which at the next moment he flung
as impatiently from him, his tossed couch and impatient gestures showed
at once the energy and the reckless impatience of a disposition whose
natural sphere was that of the most active exertion.

Beside his couch stood Thomas de Vaux, in face, attitude, and manner
the strongest possible contrast to the suffering monarch. His stature
approached the gigantic, and his hair in thickness might have resembled
that of Samson, though only after the Israelitish champion's locks had
passed under the shears of the Philistines, for those of De Vaux were
cut short, that they might be enclosed under his helmet. The light of
his broad, large hazel eye resembled that of the autumn morn; and it was
only perturbed for a moment, when from time to time it was attracted by
Richard's vehement marks of agitation and restlessness. His features,
though massive like his person, might have been handsome before they
were defaced with scars; his upper lip, after the fashion of the
Normans, was covered with thick moustaches, which grew so long and
luxuriantly as to mingle with his hair, and, like his hair, were dark
brown, slightly brindled with grey. His frame seemed of that kind which
most readily defies both toil and climate, for he was thin-flanked,
broad-chested, long-armed, deep-breathed, and strong-limbed. He had not
laid aside his buff-coat, which displayed the cross cut on the shoulder,
for more than three nights, enjoying but such momentary repose as the
warder of a sick monarch's couch might by snatches indulge. This Baron
rarely changed his posture, except to administer to Richard the medicine
or refreshments which none of his less favoured attendants could
persuade the impatient monarch to take; and there was something
affecting in the kindly yet awkward manner in which he discharged
offices so strangely contrasted with his blunt and soldierly habits and
manners.

The pavilion in which these personages were, had, as became the time,
as well as the personal character of Richard, more of a warlike than a
sumptuous or royal character. Weapons offensive and defensive, several
of them of strange and newly-invented construction, were scattered about
the tented apartment, or disposed upon the pillars which supported it.
Skins of animals slain in the chase were stretched on the ground, or
extended along the sides of the pavilion; and upon a heap of
these silvan spoils lay three ALANS, as they were then called
(wolf-greyhounds, that is), of the largest size, and as white as snow.
Their faces, marked with many a scar from clutch and fang, showed their
share in collecting the trophies upon which they reposed; and their
eyes, fixed from time to time with an expressive stretch and yawn upon
the bed of Richard, evinced how much they marvelled at and regretted the
unwonted inactivity which they were compelled to share. These were but
the accompaniments of the soldier and huntsman; but on a small table
close by the bed was placed a shield of wrought steel, of triangular
form, bearing the three lions passant first assumed by the chivalrous
monarch, and before it the golden circlet, resembling much a ducal
coronet, only that it was higher in front than behind, which, with
the purple velvet and embroidered tiara that lined it, formed then the
emblem of England's sovereignty. Beside it, as if prompt for defending
the regal symbol, lay a mighty curtal-axe, which would have wearied the
arm of any other than Coeur de Lion.

In an outer partition of the pavilion waited two or three officers of
the royal household, depressed, anxious for their master's health, and
not less so for their own safety, in case of his decease. Their gloomy
apprehensions spread themselves to the warders without, who paced about
in downcast and silent contemplation, or, resting on their halberds,
stood motionless on their post, rather like armed trophies than living
warriors.

“So thou hast no better news to bring me from without, Sir Thomas!”
 said the King, after a long and perturbed silence, spent in the feverish
agitation which we have endeavoured to describe. “All our knights turned
women, and our ladies become devotees, and neither a spark of valour nor
of gallantry to enlighten a camp which contains the choicest of Europe's
chivalry--ha!”

“The truce, my lord,” said De Vaux, with the same patience with which
he had twenty times repeated the explanation--“the truce prevents us
bearing ourselves as men of action; and for the ladies, I am no great
reveller, as is well known to your Majesty, and seldom exchange steel
and buff for velvet and gold--but thus far I know, that our choicest
beauties are waiting upon the Queen's Majesty and the Princess, to a
pilgrimage to the convent of Engaddi, to accomplish their vows for your
Highness's deliverance from this trouble.”

“And is it thus,” said Richard, with the impatience of indisposition,
“that royal matrons and maidens should risk themselves, where the dogs
who defile the land have as little truth to man as they have faith
towards God?”

“Nay, my lord,” said De Vaux, “they have Saladin's word for their
safety.”

“True, true!” replied Richard; “and I did the heathen Soldan
injustice--I owe him reparation for it. Would God I were but fit
to offer it him upon my body between the two hosts--Christendom and
heathenesse both looking on!”

As Richard spoke, he thrust his right arm out of bed naked to the
shoulder, and painfully raising himself in his couch, shook his clenched
hand, as if it grasped sword or battle-axe, and was then brandished over
the jewelled turban of the Soldan. It was not without a gentle degree of
violence, which the King would scarce have endured from another, that
De Vaux, in his character of sick-nurse, compelled his royal master
to replace himself in the couch, and covered his sinewy arm, neck, and
shoulders with the care which a mother bestows upon an impatient child.

“Thou art a rough nurse, though a willing one, De Vaux,” said the King,
laughing with a bitter expression, while he submitted to the strength
which he was unable to resist; “methinks a coif would become thy
lowering features as well as a child's biggin would beseem mine. We
should be a babe and nurse to frighten girls with.”

“We have frightened men in our time, my liege,” said De Vaux; “and, I
trust, may live to frighten them again. What is a fever-fit, that we
should not endure it patiently, in order to get rid of it easily?”

“Fever-fit!” exclaimed Richard impetuously; “thou mayest think, and
justly, that it is a fever-fit with me; but what is it with all the
other Christian princes--with Philip of France, with that dull Austrian,
with him of Montserrat, with the Hospitallers, with the Templars--what
is it with all them? I will tell thee. It is a cold palsy, a dead
lethargy, a disease that deprives them of speech and action, a canker
that has eaten into the heart of all that is noble, and chivalrous, and
virtuous among them--that has made them false to the noblest vow ever
knights were sworn to--has made them indifferent to their fame, and
forgetful of their God!”

“For the love of Heaven, my liege,” said De Vaux, “take it less
violently--you will be heard without doors, where such speeches are but
too current already among the common soldiery, and engender discord and
contention in the Christian host. Bethink you that your illness mars the
mainspring of their enterprise; a mangonel will work without screw and
lever better than the Christian host without King Richard.”

“Thou flatterest me, De Vaux,” said Richard, and not insensible to
the power of praise, he reclined his head on the pillow with a more
deliberate attempt to repose than he had yet exhibited. But Thomas
de Vaux was no courtier; the phrase which had offered had risen
spontaneously to his lips, and he knew not how to pursue the pleasing
theme so as to soothe and prolong the vein which he had excited. He was
silent, therefore, until, relapsing into his moody contemplations, the
King demanded of him sharply, “Despardieux! This is smoothly said to
soothe a sick man; but does a league of monarchs, an assemblage or
nobles, a convocation of all the chivalry of Europe, droop with the
sickness of one man, though he chances to be King of England? Why
should Richard's illness, or Richard's death, check the march of thirty
thousand men as brave as himself? When the master stag is struck down,
the herd do not disperse upon his fall; when the falcon strikes the
leading crane, another takes the guidance of the phalanx. Why do not
the powers assemble and choose some one to whom they may entrust the
guidance of the host?”

“Forsooth, and if it please your Majesty,” said De Vaux, “I hear
consultations have been held among the royal leaders for some such
purpose.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Richard, his jealousy awakened, giving his mental
irritation another direction, “am I forgot by my allies ere I have taken
the last sacrament? Do they hold me dead already? But no, no, they are
right. And whom do they select as leader of the Christian host?”

“Rank and dignity,” said De Vaux, “point to the King of France.”

“Oh, ay,” answered the English monarch, “Philip of France and
Navarre--Denis Mountjoie--his most Christian Majesty! Mouth-filling
words these! There is but one risk--that he might mistake the words EN
ARRIERE for EN AVANT, and lead us back to Paris, instead of marching to
Jerusalem. His politic head has learned by this time that there is more
to be gotten by oppressing his feudatories, and pillaging his allies,
than fighting with the Turks for the Holy Sepulchre.”

“They might choose the Archduke of Austria,” said De Vaux.

“What! because he is big and burly like thyself, Thomas--nearly as
thick-headed, but without thy indifference to danger and carelessness
of offence? I tell thee that Austria has in all that mass of flesh no
bolder animation than is afforded by the peevishness of a wasp and the
courage of a wren. Out upon him! He a leader of chivalry to deeds
of glory! Give him a flagon of Rhenish to drink with his besmirched
baaren-hauters and lance-knechts.”

“There is the Grand Master of the Templars,” continued the baron, not
sorry to keep his master's attention engaged on other topics than his
own illness, though at the expense of the characters of prince and
potentate. “There is the Grand Master of the Templars,” he continued,
“undaunted, skilful, brave in battle, and sage in council, having no
separate kingdoms of his own to divert his exertions from the recovery
of the Holy Land--what thinks your Majesty of the Master as a general
leader of the Christian host?”

“Ha, Beau-Seant?” answered the King. “Oh, no exception can be taken to
Brother Giles Amaury; he understands the ordering of a battle, and the
fighting in front when it begins. But, Sir Thomas, were it fair to take
the Holy Land from the heathen Saladin, so full of all the virtues which
may distinguish unchristened man, and give it to Giles Amaury, a worse
pagan than himself, an idolater, a devil-worshipper, a necromancer, who
practises crimes the most dark and unnatural in the vaults and secret
places of abomination and darkness?”

“The Grand Master of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem is not
tainted by fame, either with heresy or magic,” said Thomas de Vaux.

“But is he not a sordid miser?” said Richard hastily; “has he not been
suspected--ay, more than suspected--of selling to the infidels those
advantages which they would never have won by fair force? Tush, man,
better give the army to be made merchandise of by Venetian skippers and
Lombardy pedlars, than trust it to the Grand Master of St. John.”

“Well, then, I will venture but another guess,” said the Baron de Vaux.
“What say you to the gallant Marquis of Montserrat, so wise, so elegant,
such a good man-at-arms?”

“Wise?--cunning, you would say,” replied Richard; “elegant in a lady's
chamber, if you will. Oh, ay, Conrade of Montserrat--who knows not the
popinjay? Politic and versatile, he will change you his purposes as
often as the trimmings of his doublet, and you shall never be able to
guess the hue of his inmost vestments from their outward colours. A
man-at-arms? Ay, a fine figure on horseback, and can bear him well in
the tilt-yard, and at the barriers, when swords are blunted at point
and edge, and spears are tipped with trenchers of wood instead of steel
pikes. Wert thou not with me when I said to that same gay Marquis, 'Here
we be, three good Christians, and on yonder plain there pricks a band of
some threescore Saracens--what say you to charge them briskly? There are
but twenty unbelieving miscreants to each true knight.”

“I recollect the Marquis replied,” said De Vaux, “that his limbs were
of flesh, not of iron, and that he would rather bear the heart of a
man than of a beast, though that beast were the lion, But I see how
it is--we shall end where we began, without hope of praying at the
Sepulchre until Heaven shall restore King Richard to health.”

At this grave remark Richard burst out into a hearty fit of laughter,
the first which he had for some time indulged in. “Why what a thing is
conscience,” he said, “that through its means even such a thick-witted
northern lord as thou canst bring thy sovereign to confess his folly!
It is true that, did they not propose themselves as fit to hold my
leading-staff, little should I care for plucking the silken trappings
off the puppets thou hast shown me in succession. What concerns it me
what fine tinsel robes they swagger in, unless when they are named as
rivals in the glorious enterprise to which I have vowed myself? Yes,
De Vaux, I confess my weakness, and the wilfulness of my ambition. The
Christian camp contains, doubtless, many a better knight than Richard of
England, and it would be wise and worthy to assign to the best of them
the leading of the host. But,” continued the warlike monarch, raising
himself in his bed, and shaking the cover from his head, while his eyes
sparkled as they were wont to do on the eve of battle, “were such a
knight to plant the banner of the Cross on the Temple of Jerusalem while
I was unable to bear my share in the noble task, he should, so soon as I
was fit to lay lance in rest, undergo my challenge to mortal combat,
for having diminished my fame, and pressed in before to the object of my
enterprise. But hark, what trumpets are those at a distance?”

“Those of King Philip, as I guess, my liege,” said the stout Englishman.

“Thou art dull of ear, Thomas,” said the King, endeavouring to start up;
“hearest thou not that clash and clang? By Heaven, the Turks are in the
camp--I hear their LELIES.” [The war-cries of the Moslemah.]

He again endeavoured to get out of bed, and De Vaux was obliged to
exercise his own great strength, and also to summon the assistance of
the chamberlains from the inner tent, to restrain him.

“Thou art a false traitor, De Vaux,” said the incensed monarch, when,
breathless and exhausted with struggling, he was compelled to submit
to superior strength, and to repose in quiet on his couch. “I would I
were--I would I were but strong enough to dash thy brains out with my
battle-axe!”

“I would you had the strength, my liege,” said De Vaux, “and would
even take the risk of its being so employed. The odds would be great in
favour of Christendom were Thomas Multon dead and Coeur de Lion himself
again.”

“Mine honest faithful servant,” said Richard, extending his hand, which
the baron reverentially saluted, “forgive thy master's impatience of
mood. It is this burning fever which chides thee, and not thy kind
master, Richard of England. But go, I prithee, and bring me word what
strangers are in the camp, for these sounds are not of Christendom.”

De Vaux left the pavilion on the errand assigned, and in his absence,
which he had resolved should be brief, he charged the chamberlains,
pages, and attendants to redouble their attention on their sovereign,
with threats of holding them to responsibility, which rather added to
than diminished their timid anxiety in the discharge of their duty; for
next, perhaps, to the ire of the monarch himself, they dreaded that
of the stern and inexorable Lord of Gilsland. [Sir Thomas Multon of
Gilsland.]



CHAPTER VII.

     There never was a time on the march parts yet,
     When Scottish with English met,
     But it was marvel if the red blood ran not
     As the rain does in the street.
     --BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE.

A considerable band of Scottish warriors had joined the Crusaders,
and had naturally placed themselves under the command of the English
monarch, being, like his native troops, most of them of Saxon and
Norman descent, speaking the same languages, possessed, some of them, of
English as well as Scottish demesnes, and allied in some cases by blood
and intermarriage. The period also preceded that when the grasping
ambition of Edward I. gave a deadly and envenomed character to the wars
betwixt the two nations--the English fighting for the subjugation
of Scotland, and the Scottish, with all the stern determination and
obstinacy which has ever characterized their nation, for the defence
of their independence, by the most violent means, under the most
disadvantageous circumstances, and at the most extreme hazard. As yet,
wars betwixt the two nations, though fierce and frequent, had been
conducted on principles of fair hostility, and admitted of those
softening shades by which courtesy and the respect for open and generous
foemen qualify and mitigate the horrors of war. In time of peace,
therefore, and especially when both, as at present, were engaged in war,
waged in behalf of a common cause, and rendered dear to them by their
ideas of religion, the adventurers of both countries frequently fought
side by side, their national emulation serving only to stimulate them to
excel each other in their efforts against the common enemy.

The frank and martial character of Richard, who made no distinction
betwixt his own subjects and those of William of Scotland, excepting as
they bore themselves in the field of battle, tended much to
conciliate the troops of both nations. But upon his illness, and the
disadvantageous circumstances in which the Crusaders were placed, the
national disunion between the various bands united in the Crusade, began
to display itself, just as old wounds break out afresh in the human body
when under the influence of disease or debility.

The Scottish and English, equally jealous and high-spirited, and apt to
take offence--the former the more so, because the poorer and the weaker
nation--began to fill up by internal dissension the period when the
truce forbade them to wreak their united vengeance on the Saracens.
Like the contending Roman chiefs of old, the Scottish would admit no
superiority, and their southern neighbours would brook no equality.
There were charges and recriminations, and both the common soldiery
and their leaders and commanders, who had been good comrades in time of
victory, lowered on each other in the period of adversity, as if their
union had not been then more essential than ever, not only to the
success of their common cause, but to their joint safety. The same
disunion had begun to show itself betwixt the French and English, the
Italians and the Germans, and even between the Danes and Swedes; but it
is only that which divided the two nations whom one island bred, and who
seemed more animated against each other for the very reason, that our
narrative is principally concerned with.

Of all the English nobles who had followed their King to Palestine,
De Vaux was most prejudiced against the Scottish. They were his near
neighbours, with whom he had been engaged during his whole life in
private or public warfare, and on whom he had inflicted many calamities,
while he had sustained at their hands not a few. His love and devotion
to the King was like the vivid affection of the old English mastiff to
his master, leaving him churlish and inaccessible to all others even
towards those to whom he was indifferent--and rough and dangerous to
any against whom he entertained a prejudice. De Vaux had never observed
without jealousy and displeasure his King exhibit any mark of courtesy
or favour to the wicked, deceitful, and ferocious race born on the
other side of a river, or an imaginary line drawn through waste and
wilderness; and he even doubted the success of a Crusade in which they
were suffered to bear arms, holding them in his secret soul little
better than the Saracens whom he came to combat. It may be added that,
as being himself a blunt and downright Englishman, unaccustomed
to conceal the slightest movement either of love or of dislike, he
accounted the fair-spoken courtesy which the Scots had learned, either
from imitation of their frequent allies, the French, or which might
have arisen from their own proud and reserved character, as a false and
astucious mark of the most dangerous designs against their neighbours,
over whom he believed, with genuine English confidence, they could, by
fair manhood, never obtain any advantage.

Yet, though De Vaux entertained these sentiments concerning his Northern
neighbours, and extended them, with little mitigation, even to such as
had assumed the Cross, his respect for the King, and a sense of the duty
imposed by his vow as a Crusader, prevented him from displaying them
otherwise than by regularly shunning all intercourse with his Scottish
brethren-at-arms as far as possible, by observing a sullen taciturnity
when compelled to meet them occasionally, and by looking scornfully upon
them when they encountered on the march and in camp. The Scottish barons
and knights were not men to bear his scorn unobserved or unreplied to;
and it came to that pass that he was regarded as the determined and
active enemy of a nation, whom, after all, he only disliked, and in some
sort despised. Nay, it was remarked by close observers that, if he had
not towards them the charity of Scripture, which suffereth long, and
judges kindly, he was by no means deficient in the subordinate and
limited virtue, which alleviates and relieves the wants of others.
The wealth of Thomas of Gilsland procured supplies of provisions and
medicines, and some of these usually flowed by secret channels into
the quarters of the Scottish--his surly benevolence proceeding on the
principle that, next to a man's friend, his foe was of most importance
to him, passing over all the intermediate relations as too indifferent
to merit even a thought. This explanation is necessary, in order that
the reader may fully understand what we are now to detail.

Thomas de Vaux had not made many steps beyond the entrance of the royal
pavilion when he was aware of what the far more acute ear of the English
monarch--no mean proficient in the art of minstrelsy--had instantly
discovered, that the musical strains, namely, which had reached their
ears, were produced by the pipes, shalms, and kettle-drums of the
Saracens; and at the bottom of an avenue of tents, which formed a broad
access to the pavilion of Richard, he could see a crowd of idle soldiers
assembled around the spot from which the music was heard, almost in the
centre of the camp; and he saw, with great surprise, mingled amid the
helmets of various forms worn by the Crusaders of different nations,
white turbans and long pikes, announcing the presence of armed
Saracens, and the huge deformed heads of several camels or dromedaries,
overlooking the multitude by aid of their long, disproportioned necks.

Wondering, and displeased at a sight so unexpected and singular--for it
was customary to leave all flags of truce and other communications from
the enemy at an appointed place without the barriers--the baron looked
eagerly round for some one of whom he might inquire the cause of this
alarming novelty.

The first person whom he met advancing to him he set down at once, by
his grave and haughty step, as a Spaniard or a Scot; and presently after
muttered to himself, “And a Scot it is--he of the Leopard. I have seen
him fight indifferently well, for one of his country.”

Loath to ask even a passing question, he was about to pass Sir Kenneth,
with that sullen and lowering port which seems to say, “I know thee, but
I will hold no communication with thee.” But his purpose was defeated
by the Northern Knight, who moved forward directly to him, and accosting
him with formal courtesy, said, “My Lord de Vaux of Gilsland, I have in
charge to speak with you.”

“Ha!” returned the English baron, “with me? But say your pleasure, so it
be shortly spoken--I am on the King's errand.”

“Mine touches King Richard yet more nearly,” answered Sir Kenneth; “I
bring him, I trust, health.”

The Lord of Gilsland measured the Scot with incredulous eyes, and
replied, “Thou art no leech, I think, Sir Scot; I had as soon thought of
your bringing the King of England wealth.”

Sir Kenneth, though displeased with the manner of the baron's
reply, answered calmly, “Health to Richard is glory and wealth to
Christendom.--But my time presses; I pray you, may I see the King?”

“Surely not, fair sir,” said the baron, “until your errand be told more
distinctly. The sick chambers of princes open not to all who inquire,
like a northern hostelry.”

“My lord,” said Kenneth, “the cross which I wear in common with
yourself, and the importance of what I have to tell, must, for the
present, cause me to pass over a bearing which else I were unapt to
endure. In plain language, then, I bring with me a Moorish physician,
who undertakes to work a cure on King Richard.”

“A Moorish physician!” said De Vaux; “and who will warrant that he
brings not poisons instead of remedies?”

“His own life, my lord--his head, which he offers as a guarantee.”

“I have known many a resolute ruffian,” said De Vaux, “who valued his
own life as little as it deserved, and would troop to the gallows as
merrily as if the hangman were his partner in a dance.”

“But thus it is, my lord,” replied the Scot. “Saladin, to whom none will
deny the credit of a generous and valiant enemy, hath sent this
leech hither with an honourable retinue and guard, befitting the high
estimation in which El Hakim [The Physician] is held by the Soldan, and
with fruits and refreshments for the King's private chamber, and such
message as may pass betwixt honourable enemies, praying him to be
recovered of his fever, that he may be the fitter to receive a visit
from the Soldan, with his naked scimitar in his hand, and a hundred
thousand cavaliers at his back. Will it please you, who are of the
King's secret council, to cause these camels to be discharged of
their burdens, and some order taken as to the reception of the learned
physician?”

“Wonderful!” said De Vaux, as speaking to himself.--“And who will vouch
for the honour of Saladin, in a case when bad faith would rid him at
once of his most powerful adversary?”

“I myself,” replied Sir Kenneth, “will be his guarantee, with honour,
life, and fortune.”

“Strange!” again ejaculated De Vaux; “the North vouches for the
South--the Scot for the Turk! May I crave of you, Sir Knight, how you
became concerned in this affair?”

“I have been absent on a pilgrimage, in the course of which,” replied
Sir Kenneth “I had a message to discharge towards the holy hermit of
Engaddi.”

“May I not be entrusted with it, Sir Kenneth, and with the answer of the
holy man?”

“It may not be, my lord,” answered the Scot.

“I am of the secret council of England,” said the Englishman haughtily.

“To which land I owe no allegiance,” said Kenneth. “Though I have
voluntarily followed in this war the personal fortunes of England's
sovereign, I was dispatched by the General Council of the kings,
princes, and supreme leaders of the army of the Blessed Cross, and to
them only I render my errand.”

“Ha! sayest thou?” said the proud Baron de Vaux. “But know, messenger
of the kings and princes as thou mayest be, no leech shall approach the
sick-bed of Richard of England without the consent of him of Gilsland;
and they will come on evil errand who dare to intrude themselves against
it.”

He was turning loftily away, when the Scot, placing himself closer, and
more opposite to him, asked, in a calm voice, yet not without expressing
his share of pride, whether the Lord of Gilsland esteemed him a
gentleman and a good knight.

“All Scots are ennobled by their birthright,” answered Thomas de Vaux,
something ironically; but sensible of his own injustice, and perceiving
that Kenneth's colour rose, he added, “For a good knight it were sin to
doubt you, in one at least who has seen you well and bravely discharge
your devoir.”

“Well, then,” said the Scottish knight, satisfied with the frankness of
the last admission, “and let me swear to you, Thomas of Gilsland, that,
as I am true Scottish man, which I hold a privilege equal to my ancient
gentry, and as sure as I am a belted knight, and come hither to acquire
LOS [Los--laus, praise, or renown] and fame in this mortal life, and
forgiveness of my sins in that which is to come--so truly, and by the
blessed Cross which I wear, do I protest unto you that I desire but the
safety of Richard Coeur de Lion, in recommending the ministry of this
Moslem physician.”

The Englishman was struck with the solemnity of the obtestation, and
answered with more cordiality than he had yet exhibited, “Tell me, Sir
Knight of the Leopard, granting (which I do not doubt) that thou art
thyself satisfied in this matter, shall I do well, in a land where the
art of poisoning is as general as that of cooking, to bring this
unknown physician to practise with his drugs on a health so valuable to
Christendom?”

“My lord,” replied the Scot, “thus only can I reply--that my squire, the
only one of my retinue whom war and disease had left in attend

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