But the Saracens were a race, polished,
perhaps, to the utmost extent which their religion permitted, and
particularly capable of entertaining high ideas of courtesy and
politeness; and such sentiments prevented his taking any notice
of the inconsistency of Sir Kenneth's feelings in the opposite
characters of a Scot and a Crusader.
Meanwhile, as they advanced, the scene began to change around
them. They were now turning to the eastward, and had reached the
range of steep and barren hills which binds in that quarter the
naked plain, and varies the surface of the country, without
changing its sterile character. Sharp, rocky eminences began to
rise around them, and, in a short time, deep declivities and
ascents, both formidable in height and difficult from the
narrowness of the path, offered to the travellers obstacles of a
different kind from those with which they had recently contended.
Dark caverns and chasms amongst the rocks--those grottoes so
often alluded to in Scripture--yawned fearfully on either side as
they proceeded, and the Scottish knight was informed by the Emir
that these were often the refuge of beasts of prey, or of men
still more ferocious, who, driven to desperation by the constant
war, and the oppression exercised by the soldiery, as well of the
Cross as of the Crescent, had become robbers, and spared neither
rank nor religion, neither sex nor age, in their depredations.
Pages:
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92