CHAPTER IV.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY HORSEMAN.

It was a burning and sultry noon, when, through a small valley, skirted
by rugged and precipitous hills, at the distance of several leagues from
Granada, a horseman, in complete armour, wound his solitary way; His
mail was black and unadorned; on his vizor waved no plume. But there was
something in his carriage and mien, and the singular beauty of his coal-
black steed, which appeared to indicate a higher rank than the absence of
page and squire, and the plainness of his accoutrements, would have
denoted to a careless eye. He rode very slowly; and his steed, with the
licence of a spoiled favourite, often halted lazily in his sultry path,
as a tuft of herbage, or the bough of some overhanging tree, offered its
temptation. At length, as he thus paused, a noise was heard in a copse
that clothed the descent of a steep mountain; and the horse started
suddenly back, forcing the traveller from his reverie. He looked
mechanically upward, and beheld the figure of a man bounding through the
trees, with rapid and irregular steps. It was a form that suited well
the silence and solitude of the spot; and might have passed for one of
those stern recluses--half hermit, half soldier--who, in the earlier
crusades, fixed their wild homes amidst the sands and caves of Palestine.
The stranger supported his steps by a long staff. His hair and beard
hung long and matted over his broad shoulders. A rusted mail, once
splendid with arabesque enrichments, protected his breast; but the loose
gown--a sort of tartan, which descended below the cuirass--was rent and
tattered, and his feet bare; in his girdle was a short curved cimiter, a