ancient Gentiles to be actually devils, so he now hesitated not
to believe that the blasphemous hymn of the Saracen had raised
up an infernal spirit.

"But what recks it?" said stout Sir Kenneth to himself; "down
with the fiend and his worshippers!"

He did not, however, think it necessary to give the same warning
of defiance to two enemies as he would unquestionably have
afforded to one. His hand was upon his mace, and perhaps the
unwary Saracen would have been paid for his Persian poetry by
having his brains dashed out on the spot, without any reason
assigned for it; but the Scottish Knight was spared from
committing what would have been a sore blot in his shield of
arms. The apparition, on which his eyes had been fixed for some
time, had at first appeared to dog their path by concealing
itself behind rocks and shrubs, using those advantages of the
ground with great address, and surmounting its irregularities
with surprising agility. At length, just as the Saracen paused
in his song, the figure, which was that of a tall man clothed in
goat-skins, sprung into the midst of the path, and seized a rein
of the Saracen's bridle in either hand, confronting thus and
bearing back the noble horse, which, unable to endure the manner
in which this sudden assailant pressed the long-armed bit, and
the severe curb, which, according to the Eastern fashion, was a
solid ring of iron, reared upright, and finally fell backwards on
his master, who, however, avoided the peril of the fall by
lightly throwing himself to one side.

The assailant then shifted his grasp from the bridle of the horse