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.