"Meantime," he said, spreading some food on the grass, "eat and
drink, and be not discouraged. Fortune may raise up or abase the
ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds
beyond her control."
The Scottish knight endeavoured to testify his thanks by showing
himself docile; but though he strove to eat out of complaisance,
the singular contrast between his present situation and that
which he had occupied on the same spot when the envoy of princes
and the victor in combat, came like a cloud over his mind, and
fasting, lassitude, and fatigue oppressed his bodily powers. El
Hakim examined his hurried pulse, his red and inflamed eye, his
heated hand, and his shortened respiration.
"The mind," he said, "grows wise by watching, but her sister the
body, of coarser materials, needs the support of repose. Thou
must sleep; and that thou mayest do so to refreshment, thou must
take a draught mingled with this elixir."
He drew from his bosom a small crystal vial, cased in silver
filigree-work, and dropped into a little golden drinking-cup a
small portion of a dark-coloured fluid.
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