whose beauty, indeed, consisted rather more in that very
power of expression, than an absolute regularity of contour or
brilliancy of complexion. Some slight marks of distinction had
escaped from her, notwithstanding her own jealous vigilance,
else how could Sir Kenneth have so readily and so undoubtingly
recognized the lovely hand, of which scarce two fingers were
visible from under the veil, or how could he have rested so
thoroughly assured that two flowers, successively dropped on the
spot, were intended as a recognition on the part of his lady-love? By what train of observation--by what
secret signs, looks,
or gestures--by what instinctive freemasonry of love, this degree
of intelligence came to subsist between Edith and her lover, we
cannot attempt to trace; for we are old, and such slight vestiges
of affection, quickly discovered by younger eyes, defy the power
of ours. Enough that such affection did subsist between parties
who had never even spoken to one another--though, on the side of
Edith, it was checked by a deep sense of the difficulties and
dangers which must necessarily attend the further progress of
their attachment; and upon that of the knight by a thousand
doubts and fears lest he had overestimated the slight tokens of
the lady's notice, varied, as they necessarily were, by long
intervals of apparent coldness, during which either the fear of
exciting the observation of others, and thus drawing danger upon
her lover, or that of sinking in his esteem by seeming too
willing to be won, made her behave with indifference, and as if
unobservant of his presence.

This narrative, tedious perhaps, but which the story renders
necessary, may serve to explain the state of intelligence, if it
deserves so strong a name, betwixt the lovers, when Edith's
unexpected appearance in the chapel produced so powerful an
effect on the feelings of her knight.



CHAPTER V.

Their necromantic forms in vain
Haunt us on the tented plain;
We bid these spectre shapes avaunt,
Ashtaroth and Termagaunt. WARTON.

The most profound silence, the deepest darkness, continued to
brood for more than an hour over the chapel in which we left the
Knight of the Leopard still kneeling, alternately expressing
thanks to Heaven and gratitude to his lady for the boon which had
been vouchsafed to him. His own safety, his own destiny, for
which he was at all times little anxious, had not now the weight
of a grain of dust in his reflections. He was in the
neighbourhood of Lady Edith; he had received tokens of her grace;
he was in a place hallowed by relics of the most awful sanctity.
A Christian soldier, a devoted lover, could fear nothing, think
of nothing, but his duty to Heaven and his devoir to his lady.

At the lapse of the space of time which we have noticed, a shrill
whistle, like that with which a falconer calls his hawk, was
heard to ring sharply through the vaulted chapel. it was a sound
ill suited to the place, and reminded Sir Kenneth how necessary
it was he should be upon his guard. He started from his knee,
and laid his hand upon his poniard. A creaking sound, as of a
screw or pulleys, succeeded, and a light streaming upwards, as
from an opening in the floor, showed that a trap-door had been
raised or depressed. In less than a minute a long, skinny arm,
partly naked, partly clothed in a sleeve of red samite, arose out
of the aperture, holding a lamp as high as it could stretch
upwards, and the figure to which the arm belonged ascended step
by step to the level of the chapel floor. The form and face of
the being who thus presented himself were those of a frightful
dwarf, with a large head, a cap fantastically adorned with three
peacock feathers, a dress of red samite, the richness of which
rendered his ugliness more conspicuous, distinguished by gold
bracelets and armlets, and a white silk sash, in which he wore a
gold-hilted dagger. This singular figure had in his left hand a
kind of broom. So soon as he had stepped from the aperture
through which he arose, he stood still, and, as if to show
himself more distinctly, moved the lamp which he held slowly over
his face and person, successively illuminating his wild and
fantastic features, and his misshapen but nervous limbs. Though
disproportioned in person, the dwarf was not so distorted as to
argue any want of strength or activity. While Sir Kenneth gazed
on this disagreeable object, the popular creed occurred to his
remembrance concerning the gnomes or earthly spirits which make
their abode in the caverns of the earth; and so much did this
figure correspond with ideas he had formed of their appearance,
that he looked on it with disgust, mingled not indeed with fear,
but that sort of awe which the presence of a supernatural
creature may infuse into the most steady bosom.

The dwarf again whistled, and summoned from beneath a companion.
This second figure ascended in the same manner as the first; but
it was a female arm in this second instance which upheld the lamp
from the subterranean vault out of which these presentments
arose, and it was a female form, much resembling the first in
shape and proportions, which slowly emerged from the floor. Her
dress was also of red samite, fantastically cut and flounced, as
if she had been dressed for some exhibition of mimes or jugglers;
and with the same minuteness which her predecessor had exhibited,
she passed the lamp over her face and person, which seemed to
rival the male's in ugliness. But with all this most
unfavourable exterior, there was one trait in the features of
both which argued alertness and intelligence in the most uncommon
degree. This arose from the brilliancy of their eyes, which,
deep-set beneath black and shaggy brows, gleamed with a lustre
which, like that in the eye of the toad, seemed to make some
amends for the extreme ugliness of countenance and person.

Sir Kenneth remained as if spellbound, while this unlovely pair,
moving round the chapel close to each other, appeared to perform
the duty of sweeping it, like menials; but as they used only one
hand, the floor was not much benefited by the exercise, which
they plied with such oddity of gestures and manner as befitted
their bizarre and fantastic appearance. When they approached
near to the knight in the course of their occupation, they ceased
to use their brooms; and placing themselves side by side,
directly opposite to Sir Kenneth, they again slowly shifted the
lights which they held, so as to allow him distinctly to survey
features which were not rendered more agreeable by being brought
nearer, and to observe the extreme quickness and keenness with
which their black and glittering eyes flashed back the light of
the lamps. They then turned the gleam of both lights upon the
knight, and having accurately surveyed him, turned their faces to
each other, and set up a loud, yelling laugh, which resounded in
his ears. The sound was so ghastly that Sir Kenneth started at
hearing it, and hastily demanded, in the name of God, who they
were who profaned that holy place with such antic gestures and
elritch exclamations.

"I am the dwarf Nectabanus," said the abortion-seeming male, in a
voice corresponding to his figure, and resembling the voice of
the night-crow more than any sound which is heard by daylight.

"And I am Guenevra, his lady and his love," replied the female,
in tones which, being shriller, were yet wilder than those of her
companion.

"Wherefore are you here?" again demanded the knight, scarcely
yet assured that they were human beings which he saw before him.

"I am," replied the male dwarf, with much assumed gravity and
dignity, "the twelfth Imaum. I am Mohammed Mohadi, the guide and
the conductor of the faithful. A hundred horses stand ready
saddled for me and my train at the Holy City, and as many at the
City of Refuge. I am he who shall bear witness, and this is one
of my houris."

"Thou liest!" answered the female, interrupting her companion,
in tones yet shriller than his own; "I am none of thy houris, and
thou art no such infidel trash as the Mohammed of whom thou
speakest. May my curse rest upon his coffin! I tell thee, thou
ass of Issachar, thou art King Arthur of Britain, whom the
fairies stole away from the field of Avalon; and I am Dame
Guenevra, famed for her beauty."

"But in truth, noble sir," said the male, "we are distressed
princes, dwelling under the wing of King Guy of Jerusalem, until
he was driven out from his own nest by the foul infidels
--Heaven's bolts consume them!"

"Hush," said a voice from the side upon which the knight had
entered--"hush, fools, and begone; your ministry is ended."

The dwarfs had no sooner heard the command than, gibbering in
discordant whispers to each other, they blew out their lights at
once, and left the knight in utter darkness, which, when the
pattering of their retiring feet had died away, was soon
accompanied by its fittest companion, total silence.

The knight felt the departure of these unfortunate creatures a
relief. He could not, from their language, manners, and
appearance, doubt that they belonged to the degraded class of
beings whom deformity of person and weakness of intellect
recommended to the painful situation of appendages to great
families, where their personal appearance and imbecility were
food for merriment to the household. Superior in no respect to
the ideas and manners of his time, the Scottish knight might, at
another period, have been much amused by the mummery of these
poor effigies of humanity; but now their appearance,
gesticulations, and language broke the train of deep and solemn
feeling with which he was impressed, and he rejoiced in the
disappearance of the unhappy objects.

A few minutes after they had retired, the door at which he had
entered opened slowly, and remaining ajar, discovered a faint
light arising from a lantern placed upon the threshold. Its
doubtful and wavering gleam showed a dark form reclined beside
the entrance, but without its precincts, which, on approaching it
more nearly, he recognized to be the hermit, crouching in the
same humble posture in which he had at first laid himself down,
and which, doubtless, he had retained during the whole time of
his guest's continuing in the chapel.

"All is over," said the hermit, as he heard the knight
approaching, "and the most wretched of earthly sinners, with him
who should think himself most honoured and most happy among the
race of humanity, must retire from this place. Take the light,
and guide me down the descent, for I must not uncover my eyes
until I am far from this hallowed spot."

The Scottish knight obeyed in silence, for a solemn and yet
ecstatic sense of what he had seen had silenced even the eager

workings of curiosity. He led the way, with considerable
accuracy, through the various secret passages and stairs by which
they had ascended, until at length they found themselves in the
outward cell of the hermit's cavern.

"The condemned criminal is restored to his dungeon, reprieved
from one miserable day to another, until his awful Judge shall at
length appoint the well-deserved sentence to be carried into
execution."

As the hermit spoke these words, he laid aside the veil with
which his eyes had been bound, and looked at it with a suppressed
and hollow sigh. No sooner had he restored it to the crypt from
which he had caused the Scot to bring it, than he said hastily
and sternly to his companion; "Begone, begone--to rest, to rest.
You may sleep--you can sleep--I neither can nor may."

Respecting the profound agitation with which this was spoken, the
knight retired into the inner cell; but casting back his eye as
he left the exterior grotto, he beheld the anchorite stripping
his shoulders with frantic haste of their shaggy mantle, and ere
he could shut the frail door which separated the two compartments
of the cavern, he heard the clang of the scourge and the groans
of the penitent under his self-inflicted penance. A cold shudder
came over the knight as he reflected what could be the foulness
of the sin, what the depth of the remorse, which, apparently,
such severe penance could neither cleanse nor assuage. He told
his beads devoutly, and flung himself on his rude couch, after a
glance at the still sleeping Moslem, and, wearied by the various
scenes of the day and the night, soon slept as sound as infancy.
Upon his awaking in the morning, he held certain conferences with
the hermit upon matters of importance, and the result of their
intercourse induced him to remain for two days longer in the
grotto. He was regular, as became a pilgrim, in his devotional
exercises, but was not again admitted to the chapel in which he
had seen such wonders.



CHAPTER VI.

Now change the scene--and let the trumpets sound,
For we must rouse the lion from his lair. OLD PLAY.

The scene must change, as our programme has announced, from the
mountain wilderness of Jordan to the camp of King Richard of
England, then stationed betwixt Jean d'Acre and Ascalon, and
containing that army with which he of the lion heart had promised
himself a triumphant march to Jerusalem, and in which he would
probably have succeeded, if not hindered by the jealousies of the
Christian princes engaged in the same enterprise, and the offence
taken by them at the uncurbed haughtiness of the English monarch,
and Richard's unveiled contempt for his brother sovereigns, who,
his equals in rank, were yet far his inferiors in courage,
hardihood, and military talents. Such discords, and particularly
those betwixt Richard and Philip of France, created disputes and
obstacles which impeded every active measure proposed by the
heroic though impetuous Richard, while the ranks of the Crusaders
were daily thinned, not only by the desertion of individuals, but
of entire bands, headed by their respective feudal leaders, who
withdrew from a contest in which they had ceased to hope for
success.

The effects of the climate became, as usual, fatal to soldiers
from the north, and the more so that the dissolute license of the
Crusaders, forming a singular contrast to the principles and
purpose of their taking up arms, rendered them more easy victims
to the insalubrious influence of burning heat and chilling dews.
To these discouraging causes of loss was to be added the sword of
the enemy. Saladin, than whom no greater name is recorded in
Eastern history, had learned, to his fatal experience, that his
light-armed followers were little able to meet in close encounter
with the iron-clad Franks, and had been taught, at the same time,
to apprehend and dread the adventurous character of his
antagonist Richard. But if his armies were more than once routed
with great slaughter,