me in a tent which had been raised for the purpose, and whilst waiting
for their summons to my repast, I continued my reveries, which must
gradually have ended in slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me,
whom, at first, I took for my janissary, but as he came nearer I found a
very different figure. He was a very old man with a beard as white as
snow; his countenance was dark but paler than that of an Arab, and his
features stern, wild, and with a peculiar savage expression; his form was
gigantic, but his arms were withered and there was a large scar on the
left side of his face which seemed to have deprived him of an eye. He
wore a black turban and black flowing robes, and there was a large chain
round his waist which clanked as he moved. It occurred to me that he was
one of the santons or sacred madmen so common in the East, and I retired
as he approached towards me. He called out: "Fly not, stranger; fear me
not, I will not harm you. You shall hear my story, it may be useful to
you." He spoke in Arabic but in a peculiar dialect and to me new, yet I
understood every word. "You see before you," he said, "a man who was
educated a Christian, but who renounced the worship of the one supreme
God for the superstitions of the pagans. I became an apostate in the
reign of the Emperor Julian, and I was employed by that Sovereign to
superintend the re-erection of the temple of Jerusalem, by which it was
intended to belie the prophecies and give the deathblow to the holy
religion. History has informed you of the result: my assistants were
most of them destroyed in a tremendous storm, I was blasted by lightning
from heaven (he raised his withered hand to his face and eye), but
suffered to live and expiate my crime in the flesh. My life has been
spent in constant and severe penance, and in that suffering of the spirit
produced by guilt, and is to be continued as long as any part of the
temple of Jupiter, in which I renounced my faith, remains in this place.
I have lived through fifteen tedious centuries, but I trust in the
mercies of Omnipotence, and I hope my atonement is completed. I now