bec could produce of his
medical proficiency.

"Ye have the word of the mighty Saladin," said the sage, touching his
cap in sign of reverence--"a word which was never broken towards friend
or foe. What, Nazarene, wouldst thou demand more?"

"I would have ocular proof of thy skill," said the baron, "and without
it thou approachest not to the couch of King Richard."

"The praise of the physician," said the Arabian, "is in the recovery of
his patient. Behold this sergeant, whose blood has been dried up by the
fever which has whitened your camp with skeletons, and against which the
art of your Nazarene leeches hath been like a silken doublet against a
lance of steel. Look at his fingers and arms, wasted like the claws and
shanks of the crane. Death had this morning his clutch on him; but had
Azrael been on one side of the couch, I being on the other, his soul
should not have been left from his body. Disturb me not with further
questions, but await the critical minute, and behold in silent wonder
the marvellous event."

The physician had then recourse to his astrolabe, the oracle of Eastern
science, and watching with grave precision until the precise time of the
evening prayer had arrived, he sunk on his knees, with his face turned
to Mecca, and recited the petitions which close the Moslemah's day of
toil. The bishop and the English baron looked on each other, meanwhile,
with symptoms of contempt and indignation, but neither judged it fit to
interrupt El Hakim in his devotions, unholy as they considered them to
be.

The Arab arose from the earth, on which he had prostrated himself, and
walking into the hut where the patient lay extended, he drew a sponge
from a small silver box, dipped perhaps in some aromatic distillation,
for when he put it to the sleeper's nose, he sneezed, awoke, and looked
wildly around. He was a ghastly spectacle as he sat up almost naked on
his couch, the bones and cartilages as visible through the surface of
his skin as if they had never been clothed with flesh. His face was
long, and furrowed with wrinkles; but his eye, though it wandered at
first, became gradually more settled. He seemed to be aware of the
presence of his dignified visitors, for he attempted feebly to pull
the covering from his head in token of reverence, as he inquired, in a
subdued and submissive voice, for his master.

"Do you know us, vassal?" said the Lord of Gilsland.

"Not perfectly, my lord," replied the squire fain