But wherefore lie you still on your couch, since the
sun is high in the heavens? or are the vestments which my
sumpter-camels have afforded unworthy of your wearing?"
"Not unworthy, surely, but unfitting for it," replied the Scot.
"Give me the dress of a slave, noble Ilderim, and I will don it
with pleasure; but I cannot brook to wear the habit of the free
Eastern warrior with the turban of the Moslem."
"Nazarene," answered the Emir, "thy nation so easily entertain
suspicion that it may well render themselves suspected. Have I
not told thee that Saladin desires no converts saving those whom
the holy Prophet shall dispose to submit themselves to his law?
violence and bribery are alike alien to his plan for extending
the true faith. Hearken to me, my brother. When the blind man
was miraculously restored to sight, the scales dropped from his
eyes at the Divine pleasure. Think'st thou that any earthly
leech could have removed them? No. Such mediciner might have
tormented the patient with his instruments, or perhaps soothed
him with his balsams and cordials, but dark as he was must the
darkened man have remained; and it is even so with the blindness
of the understanding.
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