faithful follower of our Prophet--me it should have undeceived.
Lie there, mysterious scroll," he added, thrusting it under the pile of
cushions; "strange are thy bodements and fatal, since, even when true in
themselves, they work upon those who attempt to decipher their meaning
all the effects of falsehood.--How now! what means this intrusion?"

He spoke to the dwarf Nectabanus, who rushed into the tent fearfully
agitated, with each strange and disproportioned feature wrenched by
horror into still more extravagant ugliness--his mouth open, his eyes
staring, his hands, with their shrivelled and deformed fingers, wildly
expanded.

"What now?" said the Soldan sternly.

"ACCIPE HOC!" groaned out the dwarf.

"Ha! sayest thou?" answered Saladin.

"ACCIPE HOC!" replied the panic-struck creature, unconscious,
perhaps, that he repeated the same words as before.

"Hence, I am in no vein for foolery," said the Emperor.

"Nor am I further fool," said the dwarf, "than to make my folly help out
my wits to earn my bread, poor, helpless wretch! Hear, hear me, great
Soldan!"

"Nay, if thou hast actual wrong to complain of," said Saladin, "fool or
wise, thou art entitled to the ear of a King. Retire hither with me;"
and he led him into the inner tent.

Whatever their conference related to, it was soon broken off by the
fanfare of the trumpets announcing the arrival of the various Christian
princes, whom Saladin welcomed to his tent with a royal courtesy well
becoming their rank and his own; but chiefly he saluted the young Earl
of Huntingdon, and generously congratulated him upon prospects which
seemed to have interfered with and overclouded those which he had
himself entertained.

"But think not," said the Soldan, "thou noble youth, that the Prince
of Scotland is more welcome to Saladin than was Kenneth to the solitary
Ilderim when they met in the desert, or the distressed Ethiop to the
Hakim Adonbec. A brave and generous disposition like thine hath a value
independent of condition and birth, as the cool draught, which I here
proffer thee, is as delicious from an earthen vessel as from a goblet of
gold."

The Earl of Huntingdon made a suitable reply, gratefully acknowledging
the various important services he had received from the generous Soldan;
but when he had pledged Saladin in the bowl of sherbet which the Soldan
had proffered to him, he could not help remarking with a smile, "The
brave cavalier Ilderim knew not of th