"Noble Scot," said Thomas de Vaux, grasping the Scottish knight's
hand, with a pressure which had more of cordiality than he
permitted his words to utter, "this gear must be amended. Your
esquire is but too evil fed and looked to."

In the latter part of this speech he naturally raised his voice
to its usual decided tone, The sick man was disturbed in his
slumbers.

"My master," he said, murmuring as in a dream, "noble Sir
Kenneth, taste not, to you as to me, the waters of the Clyde cold
and refreshing after the brackish springs of Palestine?"

"He dreams of his native land, and is happy in his slumbers,"
whispered Sir Kenneth to De Vaux; but had scarce uttered the
words, when the physician, arising from the place which he had
taken near the couch of the sick, and laying the hand of the
patient, whose pulse he had been carefully watching, quietly upon
the couch, came to the two knights, and taking them each by the
arm, while he intimated to them to remain silent, led them to the
front of the hut.

"In the name of Issa Ben Mariam," he said, "whom we honour as
you, though not with the same blinded superstition, disturb not
the effect of the blessed medicine of which he hath partaken. To
awaken him now is death or deprivation of reason; but return at
the hour when the muezzin calls from the minaret to evening
prayer in the mosque, and if left undisturbed until then, I
promise you this same Frankish soldier shall be able, without