" Amid these
preparations, the slaves who had arranged the refreshments stood
with drooped heads and folded arms, mute and motionless as
monumental statuary, or as automata, which waited the touch of
the artist to put them in motion.
Expecting the approach of his princely guests, the Soldan,
imbued, as most were, with the superstitions of his time, paused
over a horoscope and corresponding scroll, which had been sent to
him by the hermit of Engaddi when he departed from the camp.
"Strange and mysterious science," he muttered to himself, "which,
pretending to draw the curtain of futurity, misleads those whom
it seems to guide, and darkens the scene which it pretends to
illuminate! Who would not have said that I was that enemy most
dangerous to Richard, whose enmity was to be ended by marriage
with his kinswoman? Yet it now appears that a union betwixt this
gallant Earl and the lady will bring about friendship betwixt
Richard and Scotland, an enemy more dangerous than I, as a wildcat in a chamber is more to be dreaded
than a lion in a distant
desert.
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