Who's there!--Approach--'tis kindly done--
My learned physician and a friend.
SIR EUSTACE GREY.
Our narrative retrogrades to a period shortly previous to the incidents
last mentioned, when, as the reader must remember, the unfortunate
Knight of the Leopard, bestowed upon the Arabian physician by King
Richard, rather as a slave than in any other capacity, was exiled
from the camp of the Crusaders, in whose ranks he had so often and so
brilliantly distinguished himself. He followed his new master--for so
he must now term the Hakim--to the Moorish tents which contained his
retinue and his property, with the stupefied feelings of one who, fallen
from the summit of a precipice, and escaping unexpectedly with life, is
just able to drag himself from the fatal spot, but without the power of
estimating the extent of the damage which he has sustained. Arrived at
the tent, he threw himself, without speech of any kind, upon a couch of
dressed buffalo's hide, which was pointed out to him by his conductor,
and hiding his face betwixt his hands, groaned heavily, as if his heart
were on the point of bursting. The physician heard him, as he was giving
orders to his numerous domestics to prepare for their departure the next
morning before daybreak, and, moved with compassion, interrupted his
occupation to sit down, cross-legged, by the side of his couch, and
administer comfort according to the Oriental manner.
“My friend,” he said, “be of good comfort; for what saith the poet--it
is better that a man should be the servant of a kind master than the
slave of his own wild passions. Again, be of good courage; because,
whereas Ysouf Ben Yagoube was sold to a king by his brethren, even to
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, thy king hath, on the other hand, bestowed thee
on one who will be to thee as a brother.”
Sir Kenneth made an effort to thank the Hakim, but his heart was too
full, and the indistinct sounds which accompanied his abortive attempts
to reply induced the kind physician to desist from his premature
endeavours at consolation. He left his new domestic, or guest, in
quiet, to indulge his sorrows, and having commanded all the necessary
preparations for their departure on the morning, sat down upon the
carpet of the tent, and indulged himself in a moderate repast. After he
had thus refreshed himself, similar viands were offered to the Scottish
knight; but though the slaves let him understand that the next day would
be far advanced ere they would halt for the purpose of refreshment, Sir
Kenneth could not overcome the disgust which he felt against swallowing
any nourishment, and could be prevailed upon to taste nothing, saving a
draught of cold water.
He was awake long after his Arab host had performed his usual devotions
and betaken himself to his repose; nor had sleep visited him at the
hour of midnight, when a movement took place among the domestics, which,
though attended with no speech, and very little noise, made him aware
they were loading the camels and preparing for departure. In the course
of these preparations, the last person who was disturbed, excepting the
physician himself, was the knight of Scotland, whom, about three in the
morning, a sort of major-domo, or master of the household, acquainted
that he must arise. He did so, without further answer, and followed him
into the moonlight, where stood the camels, most of which were already
loaded, and one only remained kneeling until its burden should be
completed.
A little apart from the camels stood a number of horses ready bridled
and saddled, and the Hakim himself, coming forth, mounted on one of them
with as much agility as the grave decorum of his character permitted,
and directed another, which he pointed out, to be led towards Sir
Kenneth. An English officer was in attendance, to escort them through
the camp of the Crusaders, and to ensure their leaving it in safety; and
all was ready for their departure. The pavilion which they had left was,
in the meanwhile, struck with singular dispatch, and the tent-poles and
coverings composed the burden of the last camel--when the physician,
pronouncing solemnly the verse of the Koran, “God be our guide, and
Mohammed our protector, in the desert as in the watered field,” the
whole cavalcade was instantly in motion.
In traversing the camp, they were challenged by the various sentinels
who maintained guard there, and suffered to proceed in silence, or with
a muttered curse upon their prophet, as they passed the post of some
more zealous Crusader. At length the last barriers were left behind
them, and the party formed themselves for the march with military
precaution. Two or three horsemen advanced in front as a vanguard;
one or two remained a bow-shot in the rear; and, wherever the ground
admitted, others were detached to keep an outlook on the flanks. In this
manner they proceeded onward; while Sir Kenneth, looking back on the
moonlit camp, might now indeed seem banished, deprived at once of honour
and of liberty, from the glimmering banners under which he had hoped
to gain additional renown, and the tented dwellings of chivalry, of
Christianity, and--of Edith Plantagenet.
The Hakim, who rode by his side, observed, in his usual tone of
sententious consolation, “It is unwise to look back when the journey
lieth forward;” and as he spoke, the horse of the knight made such a
perilous stumble as threatened to add a practical moral to the tale.
The knight was compelled by this hint to give more attention to the
management of his steed, which more than once required the assistance
and support of the check-bridle, although, in other respects, nothing
could be more easy at once, and active, than the ambling pace at which
the animal (which was a mare) proceeded.
“The conditions of that horse,” observed the sententious physician, “are
like those of human fortune--seeing that, amidst his most swift and easy
pace, the rider must guard himself against a fall, and that it is when
prosperity is at the highest that our prudence should be awake and
vigilant to prevent misfortune.”
The overloaded appetite loathes even the honeycomb, and it is scarce
a wonder that the knight, mortified and harassed with misfortunes and
abasement, became something impatient of hearing his misery made, at
every turn, the ground of proverbs and apothegms, however just and
apposite.
“Methinks,” he said, rather peevishly, “I wanted no additional
illustration of the instability of fortune though I would thank thee,
Sir Hakim, for the choice of a steed for me, would the jade but stumble
so effectually as at once to break my neck and her own.”
“My brother,” answered the Arab sage, with imperturbable gravity, “thou
speakest as one of the foolish. Thou sayest in thy heart that the sage
should have given you, as his guest, the younger and better horse, and
reserved the old one for himself. But know that the defects of the older
steed may be compensated by the energies of the young rider, whereas the
violence of the young horse requires to be moderated by the cold temper
of the older.”
So spoke the sage; but neither to this observation did Sir Kenneth
return any answer which could lead to a continuance of their
conversation, and the physician, wearied, perhaps, of administering
comfort to one who would not be comforted, signed to one of his retinue.
“Hassan,” he said, “hast thou nothing wherewith to beguile the way?”
Hassan, story-teller and poet by profession, spurred up, upon this
summons, to exercise his calling. “Lord of the palace of life,” he said,
addressing the physician, “thou, before whom the angel Azrael spreadeth
his wings for flight--thou, wiser than Solimaun Ben Daoud, upon whose
signet was inscribed the REAL NAME which controls the spirits of the
elements--forbid it, Heaven, that while thou travellest upon the track
of benevolence, bearing healing and hope wherever thou comest, thine own
course should be saddened for lack of the tale and of the song. Behold,
while thy servant is at thy side, he will pour forth the treasures of
his memory, as the fountain sendeth her stream beside the pathway, for
the refreshment or him that walketh thereon.”
After this exordium, Hassan uplifted his voice, and began a tale of love
and magic, intermixed with feats of warlike achievement, and ornamented
with abundant quotations from the Persian poets, with whose compositions
the orator seemed familiar. The retinue of the physician, such excepted
as were necessarily detained in attendance on the camels, thronged up
to the narrator, and pressed as close as deference for their master
permitted, to enjoy the delight which the inhabitants of the East have
ever derived from this species of exhibition.
At another time, notwithstanding his imperfect knowledge of the
language, Sir Kenneth might have been interested in the recitation,
which, though dictated by a more extravagant imagination, and
expressed in more inflated and metaphorical language, bore yet a strong
resemblance to the romances of chivalry then so fashionable in Europe.
But as matters stood with him, he was scarcely even sensible that a
man in the centre of the cavalcade recited and sung, in a low tone, for
nearly two hours, modulating his voice to the various moods of passion
introduced into the tale, and receiving, in return, now low murmurs of
applause, now muttered expressions of wonder, now sighs and tears,
and sometimes, what it was far more difficult to extract from such an
audience, a tribute of smiles, and even laughter.
During the recitation, the attention of the exile, however abstracted by
his own deep sorrow, was occasionally awakened by the low wail of a dog,
secured in a wicker enclosure suspended on one of the camels, which, as
an experienced woodsman, he had no hesitation in recognizing to be that
of his own faithful hound; and from the plaintive tone of the animal, he
had no doubt that he was sensible of his master's vicinity, and, in his
way, invoking his assistance for liberty and rescue.
“Alas! poor Roswal,” he said, “thou callest for aid and sympathy upon
one in stricter bondage than thou thyself art. I will not seem to heed
thee or return thy affection, since it would serve but to load our
parting with yet more bitterness.”
Thus passed the hours of night and the space of dim hazy dawn which
forms the twilight of a Syrian morning. But when the very first line of
the sun's disk began to rise above the level horizon, and when the very
first level ray shot glimmering in dew along the surface of the desert,
which the travellers had now attained, the sonorous voice of El Hakim
himself overpowered and cut short the narrative of the tale-teller,
while he caused to resound along the sands the solemn summons, which the
muezzins thunder at morning from the minaret of every mosque.
“To prayer--to prayer! God is the one God.--To prayer--to prayer!
Mohammed is the Prophet of God.--To prayer--to prayer! Time is flying
from you.--To prayer--to prayer! Judgment is drawing nigh to you.”
In an instant each Moslem cast himself from his horse, turned his face
towards Mecca, and performed with sand an imitation of those ablutions,
which were elsewhere required to be made with water, while each
individual, in brief but fervent ejaculations, recommended himself to
the care, and his sins to the forgiveness, of God and the Prophet.
Even Sir Kenneth, whose reason at once and prejudices were offended by
seeing his companions in that which he considered as an act of idolatry,
could not help respecting the sincerity of their misguided zeal, and
being stimulated by their fervour to apply supplications to Heaven in a
purer form, wondering, meanwhile, what new-born feelings could teach
him to accompany in prayer, though with varied invocation, those
very Saracens, whose heathenish worship he had conceived a crime
dishonourable to the land in which high miracles had been wrought, and
where the day-star of redemption had arisen.
The act of devotion, however, though rendered in such strange society,
burst purely from his natural feelings of religious duty, and had its
usual effect in composing the spirits which had been long harassed by
so rapid a succession of calamities. The sincere and earnest approach of
the Christian to the throne of the Almighty teaches the best lesson of
patience under affliction; since wherefore should we mock the Deity with
supplications, when we insult him by murmuring under His decrees?
or how, while our prayers have in every word admitted the vanity and
nothingness of the things of time in comparison to those of eternity,
should we hope to deceive the Searcher of Hearts, by permitting the
world and worldly passions to reassume the reins even immediately after
a solemn address to Heaven! But Sir Kenneth was not of these. He felt
himself comforted and strengthened, and better prepared to execute or
submit to whatever his destiny might call upon him to do or to suffer.
Meanwhile, the party of Saracens regained their saddles, and continued
their route, and the tale-teller, Hassan, resumed the thread of his
narrative; but it was no longer to the same attentive audience. A
horseman, who had ascended some high ground on the right hand of
the little column, had returned on a speedy gallop to El Hakim, and
communicated with him. Four or five more cavaliers had then been
dispatched, and the little band, which might consist of about twenty or
thirty persons, began to follow them with their eyes, as men from whose
gestures, and advance or retreat, they were to augur good or evil.
Hassan, finding his audience inattentive, or being himself attracted by
the dubious appearances on the flank, stinted in his song; and the
march became silent, save when a camel-driver called out to his patient
charge, or some anxious follower of the Hakim communicated with his next
neighbour in a hurried and low whisper.
This suspense continued until they had rounded a ridge, composed of
hillocks of sand, which concealed from their main body the object that
had created this alarm among their scouts. Sir Kenneth could now see,
at the distance of a mile or more, a dark object moving rapidly on the
bosom of the desert, which his experienced eye recognized for a party of
cavalry, much superior to their own in numbers, and, from the thick and
frequent flashes which flung back the level beams of the rising sun, it
was plain that these were Europeans in their complete panoply.
The anxious looks which the horsemen of El Hakim now cast upon their
leader seemed to indicate deep apprehension; while he, with gravity as
undisturbed as when he called his followers to prayer, detached two of
his best-mounted cavaliers, with instructions to approach as closely as
prudence permitted to these travellers of the desert, and observe
more minutely their numbers, their character, and, if possible, their
purpose. The approach of danger, or what was feared as such, was like
a stimulating draught to one in apathy, and recalled Sir Kenneth to
himself and his situation.
“What fear you from these Christian horsemen, for such they seem?” he
said to the Hakim.
“Fear!” said El Hakim, repeating the word disdainfully. “The sage fears
nothing but Heaven, but ever expects from wicked men the worst which
they can do.”
“They are Christians,” said Sir Kenneth, “and it is the time of
truce--why should you fear a breach of faith?”
“They are the priestly soldiers of the Temple,” answered El Hakim,
“whose vow limits them to know neither truce nor faith with the
worshippers of Islam. May the Prophet blight them, both root, branch,
and twig! Their peace is war, and their faith is falsehood. Other
invaders of Palestine have their times and moods of courtesy. The lion
Richard will spare when he has conquered, the eagle Philip will close
his wing when he has stricken a prey, even the Austrian bear will sleep
when he is gorged; but this horde of ever-hungry wolves know neither
pause nor satiety in their rapine. Seest thou not that they are
detaching a party from their main body, and that they take an eastern
direction? Yon are their pages and squires, whom they train up in their
accursed mysteries, and whom, as lighter mounted, they send to cut us
off from our watering-place. But they will be disappointed. I know the
war of the desert yet better than they.”
He spoke a few words to his principal officer, and his whole demeanour
and countenance was at once changed from the solemn repose of an Eastern
sage accustomed more to contemplation than to action, into the prompt
and proud expression of a gallant soldier whose energies are roused by
the near approach of a danger which he at once foresees and despises.
To Sir Kenneth's eyes the approaching crisis had a different aspect,
and when Adonbec said to him, “Thou must tarry close by my side,” he
answered solemnly in the negative.
“Yonder,” he said, “are my comrades in arms--the men in whose society I
have vowed to fight or fall. On their banner gleams the sign of our
most blessed redemption--I cannot fly from the Cross in company with the
Crescent.”
“Fool!” said the Hakim; “their first action would be to do thee to
death, were it only to conceal their breach of the truce.”
“Of that I must take my chance,” replied Sir Kenneth; “but I wear not
the bonds of the infidels an instant longer than I can cast them from
me.”
“Then will I compel thee to follow me,” said El Hakim.
“Compel!” answered Sir Kenneth angrily. “Wert thou not my benefactor,
or one who has showed will to be such, and were it not that it is to
thy confidence I owe the freedom of these hands, which thou mightst have
loaded with fetters, I would show thee that, unarmed as I am, compulsion
would be no easy task.”
“Enough, enough,” replied the Arabian physician, “we lose time even when
it is becoming precious.”
So saying, he threw his arm aloft, and uttered a loud and shrill cry, as
a signal to his retinue, who instantly dispersed themselves on the face
of the desert, in as many different directions as a chaplet of beads
when the string is broken. Sir Kenneth had no time to note what ensued;
for, at the same instant, the Hakim seized the rein of his steed,
and putting his own to its mettle, both sprung forth at once with the
suddenness of light, and at a pitch of velocity which almost deprived
the Scottish knight of the power of respiration, and left him absolutely
incapable, had he been desirous, to have checked the career of his
guide. Practised as Sir Kenneth was in horsemanship from his earliest
youth, the speediest horse he had ever mounted was a tortoise in
comparison to those of the Arabian sage. They spurned the sand from
behind them; they seemed to devour the desert before them; miles flew
away with minutes--and yet their strength seemed unabated, and their
respiration as free as when they first started upon the wonderful
race. The motion, too, as easy as it was swift, seemed more like flying
through the air than riding on the earth, and was attended with no
unpleasant sensation, save the awe naturally felt by one who is moving
at such astonishing speed, and the difficulty of breathing occasioned by
their passing through the air so rapidly.
It was not until after an hour of this portentous motion, and when all
human pursuit was far, far behind, that the Hakim at length relaxed his
speed, and, slackening the pace of the horses into a hand-gallop, began,
in a voice as composed and even as if he had been walking for the last
hour, a descant upon the excellence of his coursers to the Scot, who,
breathless, half blind, half deaf, and altogether giddy; from the
rapidity of this singular ride, hardly comprehended the words which
flowed so freely from his companion.
“These horses,” he said, “are of the breed called the Winged, equal in
speed to aught excepting the Borak of the Prophet. They are fed on the
golden barley of Yemen, mixed with spices and with a small portion of
dried sheep's flesh. Kings have given provinces to possess them, and
their age is active as their youth. Thou, Nazarene, art the first, save
a true believer, that ever had beneath his loins one of this noble
race, a gift of the Prophet himself to the blessed Ali, his kinsman and
lieutenant, well called the Lion of God. Time lays his touch so lightly
on these generous steeds, that the mare on which thou now sittest has
seen five times five years pass over her, yet retains her pristine speed
and vigour, only that in the career the support of a bridle, managed by
a hand more experienced than thine, hath now become necessary. May the
Prophet be blessed, who hath bestowed on the true believers the means of
advance and retreat, which causeth their iron-clothed enemies to be
worn out with their own ponderous weight! How the horses of yonder dog
Templars must have snorted and blown, when they had toiled fetlock-deep
in the desert for one-twentieth part of the space which these brave
steeds have left behind them, without one thick pant, or a drop of
moisture upon their sleek and velvet coats!”
The Scottish knight, who had now begun to recover his breath and powers
of attention, could not help acknowledging in his heart the advantage
possessed by these Eastern warriors in a race of animals, alike proper
for advance or retreat, and so admirably adapted to the level and sandy
deserts of Arabia and Syria. But he did not choose to augment the pride
of the Moslem by acquiescing in his proud claim of superiority, and
therefore suffered the conversation to drop, and, looking around him,
could now, at the more moderate pace at which they moved, distinguish
that he was in a country not unknown to him.
The blighted borders and sullen waters of the Dead Sea, the ragged and
precipitous chain of mountains arising on the left, the two or three
palms clustered together, forming the single green speck on the bosom
of the waste wilderness--objects which, once seen, were scarcely to be
forgotten--showed to Sir Kenneth that they were approaching the fountain
called the Diamond of the Desert, which had been the scene of his
interview on a former occasion with the Saracen Emir Sheerkohf, or
Ilderim. In a few minutes they checked their horses beside the spring,
and the Hakim invited Sir Kenneth to descend from horseback and repose
himself as in a place of safety. They unbridled their steeds, El Hakim
observing that further care of them was unnecessary, since they would be
speedily joined by some of the best mounted among his slaves, who would
do what further was needful.
“Meantime,” he said, spreading some food on the grass, “eat and drink,
and be not discouraged. Fortune may raise up or abase the ordinary
mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her
control.”
The Scottish knight endeavoured to testify his thanks by showing himself
docile; but though he strove to eat out of complaisance, the singular
contrast between his present situation and that which he had occupied on
the same spot when the envoy of princes and the victor in combat,
came like a cloud over his mind, and fasting, lassitude, and fatigue
oppressed his bodily powers. El Hakim examined his hurried pulse, his
red and inflamed eye, his heated hand, and his shortened respiration.
“The mind,” he said, “grows wise by watching, but her sister the body,
of coarser materials, needs the support of repose. Thou must sleep; and
that thou mayest do so to refreshment, thou must take a draught mingled
with this elixir.”
He drew from his bosom a small crystal vial, cased in silver
filigree-work, and dropped into a little golden drinking-cup a small
portion of a dark-coloured fluid.
“This,” he said, “is one of those productions which Allah hath sent
on earth for a blessing, though man's weakness and wickedness have
sometimes converted it into a curse. It is powerful as the wine-cup of
the Nazarene to drop the curtain on the sleepless eye, and to relieve
the burden of the overloaded bosom; but when applied to the purposes of
indulgence and debauchery, it rends the nerves, destroys the strength,
weakens the intellect, and undermines life. But fear not thou to use
its virtues in the time of need, for the wise man warms him by the same
firebrand with which the madman burneth the tent.” [Some preparation of
opium seems to be intimated.]
“I have seen too much of thy skill, sage Hakim,” said Sir Kenneth, “to
debate thine hest;” and swallowed the narcotic, mingled as it was with
some water from the spring, then wrapped him in the haik, or Arab cloak,
which had been fastened to his saddle-pommel, and, according to the
directions of the physician, stretched himself at ease in the shade to
await the promised repose. Sleep came not at first, but in her stead
a train of pleasing yet not rousing or awakening sensations. A state
ensued in which, still conscious of his own identity and his own
condition, the knight felt enabled to consider them not only without
alarm and sorrow, but as composedly as he might have viewed the story
of his misfortunes acted upon a stage--or rather as a disembodied spirit
might regard the transactions of its past existence. From this state
of repose, amounting almost to apathy respecting the past, his thoughts
were carried forward to the future, which, in spite of all that existed
to overcloud the prospect, glittered with such hues as, under much
happier auspices, his unstimulated imagination had not been able to
produce, even in its most exalted state. Liberty, fame, successful love,
appeared to be the certain and not very distant prospect of the enslaved
exile, the dishonoured knight, even of the despairing lover who had
placed his hopes of happiness so far beyond the prospect of chance, in
her wildest possibilities, serving to countenance his wishes. Gradually
as the intellectual sight became overclouded, these gay visions became
obscure, like the dying hues of sunset, until they were at last lost in
total oblivion; and Sir Kenneth lay extended at the feet of El Hakim, to
all appearance, but for his deep respiration, as inanimate a corpse as
if life had actually departed.