ht it long since by the bed of
my master."

The Bishop of Tyre blushed, for he had rather avoided the presence of
the sick monarch; and he bid the baron lead on.

As they paused before the wretched hut in which Kenneth of the Leopard
and his follower abode, the bishop said to De Vaux, "Now, of a surety,
my lord, these Scottish Knights have worse care of their followers than
we of our dogs. Here is a knight, valiant, they say, in battle, and
thought fitting to be graced with charges of weight in time of truce,
whose esquire of the body is lodged worse than in the worst dog-kennel
in England. What say you of your neighbours?"

"That a master doth well enough for his servant when he lodgeth him in
no worse dwelling than his own," said De Vaux, and entered the hut.

The bishop followed, not without evident reluctance; for though he
lacked not courage in some respects, yet it was tempered with a strong
and lively regard for his own safety. He recollected, however, the
necessity there was for judging personally of the skill of the Arabian
physician, and entered the hut with a stateliness of manner calculated,
as he thought, to impose respect on the stranger.

The prelate was, indeed, a striking and commanding figure. In his youth
he had been eminently handsome, and even in age was unwilling to appear
less so. His episcopal dress was of the richest fashion, trimmed with
costly fur, and surrounded by a cope of curious needlework. The rings
on his fingers were worth a goodly barony, and the hood which he wore,
though now unclasped and thrown back for heat, had studs of pure gold to
fasten it around his throat and under his chin when he so inclined. His
long beard, now silvered with age, descended over his breast. One of two
youthful acolytes who attended him created an artificial shade, peculiar
then to the East, by bearing over his head an umbrella of palmetto
leaves, while the other refreshed his reverend master by agitating a fan
of peacock-feathers.

When the Bishop of Tyre entered the hut of the Scottish knight, the
master was absent, and the Moorish physician, whom he had come to see,
sat in the very posture in which De Vaux had left him several hours
before, cross-legged upon a mat made of twisted leaves, by the side of
the patient, who appeared in deep slumber, and whose pulse he felt from
time to time. The bishop remained standing before him in silence for
two or three minutes, as if expecting some honourable salu