ert wastes, beneath the spreading
branches of many cedars; but as yet no sight met the eye to support
the impressions made already upon the ear.

It was not long, however, before the rapidly approaching sounds
became too distinct to suffer him to hesitate, and he gave the
alarm.

The merry song ceased; the conversation dropped; and in the awful
stillness the senses of each man confirmed the report of the
sentinel.

"They may be friends," said the young knight.

"Friends are scarce in the desert," said an aged man-at-arms, the
Nestor of the expedition; "permit us to arm, my lord."

The word was given, and each man-at-arms hastened to his steed; the
archers--footmen--adjusted their bows, when a troop of wild
horsemen, approaching with the speed of the wind, became visible.

They appeared to number a hundred men, so far as they could be
discerned and their force estimated amidst the dust which they
created, and their ever-changing evolutions. Anon grim forms and
wild faces appeared from the cloud; spears glanced in every
direction--now whirled around their heads, now thrown and caught
with the dexterity of jugglers.

They seemed to manage their horses less by the bridle than by the
inflections of their bodies, so that they could spare, at need,
both hands for combat--the one to hold the bucklers of rhinoceros
skin or crocodile hide, the other to wield spear or scimitar.

Turbans surrounded their heads, and light garments their bodies;
but defensive armour had they none.

"Let them come on," said the young knight; "we would not give way,
though the desert yielded twenty times such scum."

But they knew too well their own inferiority in the charge to
venture upon the steel of their mail-clad opponents. At about a
hundred yards distance from their quarry they swerved, divided into
two parties, and, riding to the right and left of their Christian
opponents, discharged upon them such a storm of darts and arrows
that the very air seemed darkened.

"Charge," shouted the young knight, "for God and the Holy
Sepulchre."

They charged, but might as well have ridden after the mirage of the
desert; the speed of the Arab horses seemed incredible, and they
eluded the charge as easily as a hare might elude that of a
tortoise. The Crusaders returned to their original station around
the cedar.

They looked at each other. Ten bodies, dead or wounded, lay still,
or writhing on the ground; for they had not had time to cover