to the throat of the rider, flung himself above the struggling
Saracen, and, despite of his youth and activity kept him
undermost, wreathing his long arms above those of his prisoner,
who called out angrily, and yet half-laughing at the same time
--"Hamako--fool--unloose me--this passes thy privilege--unloose
me, or I will use my dagger."

"Thy dagger!--infidel dog!" said the figure in the goat-skins,
"hold it in thy gripe if thou canst!" and in an instant he
wrenched the Saracen's weapon out of its owner's hand, and
brandished it over his head.

"Help, Nazarene!" cried Sheerkohf, now seriously alarmed; "help,
or the Hamako will slay me."

"Slay thee!" replied the dweller of the desert; "and well hast
thou merited death, for singing thy blasphemous hymns, not only
to the praise of thy false prophet, who is the foul fiend's
harbinger, but to that of the Author of Evil himself."

The Christian Knight had hitherto looked on as one stupefied, so
strangely had this rencontre contradicted, in its progress and
event, all that he had previously conjectured. He felt, however,
at length, that it touched his honour to interfere in behalf of
his discomfited companion, and therefore addressed himself to the
victorious figure in the goat-skins.

"Whosoe'er thou art," he said, "and whether of good or of evil,
know that I am sworn for the time to be true companion to the
Saracen whom thou holdest under thee; therefore, I pray thee to