The Scottish knight listened with indifference to the accounts of
ravages committed by wild beasts or wicked men, secure as he felt
himself in his own valour and personal strength; but he was
struck with mysterious dread when he recollected that he was now
in the awful wilderness of the forty days' fast, and the scene of
the actual personal temptation, wherewith the Evil Principle was
permitted to assail the Son of Man. He withdrew his attention
gradually from the light and worldly conversation of the infidel
warrior beside him, and, however acceptable his gay and gallant
bravery would have rendered him as a companion elsewhere, Sir
Kenneth felt as if, in those wildernesses the waste and dry
places in which the foul spirits were wont to wander when
expelled the mortals whose forms they possessed, a bare-footed
friar would have been a better associate than the gay but
unbelieving paynim.
These feelings embarrassed him the rather that the Saracen's
spirits appeared to rise with the journey, and because the
farther he penetrated into the gloomy recesses of the mountains,
the lighter became his conversation, and when he found that
unanswered, the louder grew his song.
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