he 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 interm