ard.

This splendid array advanced to the sound of military music, and when
they met the Christian body they opened their files to the right and
left, and let them enter between their ranks. Richard now assumed the
foremost place in his troop, aware that Saladin himself was approaching.
Nor was it long when, in the centre of his bodyguard, surrounded by his
domestic officers and those hideous negroes who guard the Eastern
haram, and whose misshapen forms were rendered yet more frightful by the
richness of their attire, came the Soldan, with the look and manners of
one on whose brow Nature had written, This is a King! In his snow-white
turban, vest, and wide Eastern trousers, wearing a sash of scarlet
silk, without any other ornament, Saladin might have seemed the
plainest-dressed man in his own guard. But closer inspection discerned
in his turban that inestimable gem which was called by the poets the
Sea of Light; the diamond on which his signet was engraved, and which he
wore in a ring, was probably worth all the jewels of the English crown;
and a sapphire which terminated the hilt of his cangiar was not of much
inferior value. It should be added that, to protect himself from the
dust, which in the vicinity of the Dead Sea resembles the finest ashes,
or, perhaps, out of Oriental pride, the Soldan wore a sort of veil
attached to his turban, which partly obscured the view of his noble
features. He rode a milk-white Arabian, which bore him as if conscious
and proud of his noble burden.

There was no need of further introduction. The two heroic monarchs--for
such they both were--threw themselves at once from horseback, and the
troops halting and the music suddenly ceasing, they advanced to meet
each other in profound silence, and after a courteous inclination on
either side they embraced as brethren and equals. The pomp and display
upon both sides attracted no further notice--no one saw aught save
Richard and Saladin, and they too beheld nothing but each other. The
looks with which Richard surveyed Saladin were, however, more intently
curious than those which the Soldan fixed upon him; and the Soldan also
was the first to break silence.

"The Melech Ric is welcome to Saladin as water to this desert. I trust
he hath no distrust of this numerous array. Excepting the armed slaves
of my household, those who surround you with eyes of wonder and of
welcome are--even the humblest of them--the privileged nobles of my
thousand t