ficient 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 a