His
long beard, now silvered with age, descended over his breast.
One of two youthful acolytes who attended him created an
artificial shade, peculiar then to the East, by bearing over his
head an umbrella of palmetto leaves, while the other refreshed
his reverend master by agitating a fan of peacock-feathers.
When the Bishop of Tyre entered the hut of the Scottish knight,
the master was absent, and the Moorish physician, whom he had
come to see, sat in the very posture in which De Vaux had left
him several hours before, cross-legged upon a mat made of twisted
leaves, by the side of the patient, who appeared in deep slumber,
and whose pulse he felt from time to time. The bishop remained
standing before him in silence for two or three minutes, as if
expecting some honourable salutation, or at least that the
Saracen would seem struck with the dignity of his appearance.
But Adonbec el Hakim took no notice of him beyond a passing
glance, and when the prelate at length saluted him in the lingua
franca current in the country, he only replied by the ordinary
Oriental greeting, "SALAM ALICUM--Peace be with you.
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