rkish 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 impor