as called to battle by thy
approach."

The Knight of the Couchant Leopard yielded a ready and courteous assent;
and the late foes, without an angry look or gesture of doubt, rode side
by side to the little cluster of palm-trees.

CHAPTER II.

Times of danger have always, and in a peculiar degree, their seasons
of good-will and security; and this was particularly so in the ancient
feudal ages, in which, as the manners of the period had assigned war
to be the chief and most worthy occupation of mankind, the intervals
of peace, or rather of truce, were highly relished by those warriors to
whom they were seldom granted, and endeared by the very circumstances
which rendered them transitory. It is not worth while preserving any
permanent enmity against a foe whom a champion has fought with to-day,
and may again stand in bloody opposition to on the next morning. The
time and situation afforded so much room for the ebullition of violent
passions, that men, unless when peculiarly opposed to each other,
or provoked by the recollection of private and individual wrongs,
cheerfully enjoyed in each other's society the brief intervals of
pacific intercourse which a warlike life admitted.

The distinction of religions, nay, the fanatical zeal which animated the
followers of the Cross and of the Crescent against each other, was much
softened by a feeling so natural to generous combatants, and especially
cherished by the spirit of chivalry. This last strong impulse had
extended itself gradually from the Christians to their mortal enemies
the Saracens, both of Spain and of Palestine. The latter were, indeed,
no longer the fanatical savages who had burst from the centre of Arabian
deserts, with the sabre in one hand and the Koran in the other, to
inflict death or the faith of Mohammed, or, at the best, slavery and
tribute, upon all who dared to oppose the belief of the prophet of
Mecca. These alternatives indeed had been offered to the unwarlike
Greeks and Syrians; but in contending with the Western Christians,
animated by a zeal as fiery as their own, and possessed of as
unconquerable courage, address, and success in arms, the Saracens
gradually caught a part of their manners, and especially of those
chivalrous observances which were so well calculated to charm the minds
of a proud and conquering people. They had their tournaments and games
of chivalry; they had even their knights, or some rank analogous; and
above all, the Sarac