disposition of the Knight of the Sleeping
Leopard; and at noon, when the Dead Sea lay at some distance on his
right, he joyfully hailed the sight of two or three palm-trees, which
arose beside the well which was assigned for his mid-day station. His
good horse, too, which had plodded forward with the steady endurance of
his master, now lifted his head, expanded his nostrils, and quickened
his pace, as if he snuffed afar off the living waters which marked the
place of repose and refreshment. But labour and danger were doomed to
intervene ere the horse or horseman reached the desired spot.

As the Knight of the Couchant Leopard continued to fix his eyes
attentively on the yet distant cluster of palm-trees, it seemed to him
as if some object was moving among them. The distant form separated
itself from the trees, which partly hid its motions, and advanced
towards the knight with a speed which soon showed a mounted horseman,
whom his turban, long spear, and green caftan floating in the wind, on
his nearer approach showed to be a Saracen cavalier. "In the desert,"
saith an Eastern proverb, "no man meets a friend." The Crusader was
totally indifferent whether the infidel, who now approached on his
gallant barb as if borne on the wings of an eagle, came as friend or
foe--perhaps, as a vowed champion of the Cross, he might rather have
preferred the latter. He disengaged his lance from his saddle, seized
it with the right hand, placed it in rest with its point half elevated,
gathered up the reins in the left, waked his horse's mettle with
the spur, and prepared to encounter the stranger with the calm
self-confidence belonging to the victor in many contests.

The Saracen came on at the speedy gallop of an Arab horseman, managing
his steed more by his limbs and the inflection of his body than by any
use of the reins, which hung loose in his left hand; so that he was
enabled to wield the light, round buckler of the skin of the rhinoceros,
ornamented with silver loops, which he wore on his arm, swinging it as
if he meant to oppose its slender circle to the formidable thrust of the
Western lance. His own long spear was not couched or levelled like that
of his antagonist, but grasped by the middle with his right hand, and
brandished at arm's-length above his head. As the cavalier approached
his enemy at full career, he seemed to expect that the Knight of the
Leopard should put his horse to the gallop to encounter him. But the
Christ