all, a long lance displayed a shroud, the
banner of Death, with this impressive inscription, "SALADIN, KING OF
KINGS--SALADIN, VICTOR OF VICTORS--SALADIN MUST DIE." Amid these
preparations, the slaves who had arranged the refreshments stood with
drooped heads and folded arms, mute and motionless as monumental
statuary, or as automata, which waited the touch of the artist to put
them in motion.

Expecting the approach of his princely guests, the Soldan, imbued, as
most were, with the superstitions of his time, paused over a horoscope
and corresponding scroll, which had been sent to him by the Hermit of
Engaddi when he departed from the camp.

"Strange and mysterious science," he muttered to himself, "which,
pretending to draw the curtain of futurity, misleads those whom it seems
to guide, and darkens the scene which it pretends to illuminate! Who
would not have said that I was that enemy most dangerous to Richard,
whose enmity was to be ended by marriage with his kinswoman? Yet it now
appears that a union betwixt this gallant Earl and the lady will bring
about friendship betwixt Richard and Scotland, an enemy more dangerous
than I, as a wild cat in a chamber is more to be dreaded than a lion in
a distant desert.--But then,...--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! say'st 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 chi