“Fare thee well, Roswal, then,” said Sir Kenneth—“fare thee well, my last and only friend—thou art too noble a possession to be retained by one such as I must in future call myself!—I would,” he said, as the slaves retired, “that, dying as he is, I could exchange conditions with that noble animal!”
“It is written,” answered the Arabian, although the exclamation had not been addressed to him, “that all creatures are fashioned for the service of man; and the master of the earth speaketh folly when he would exchange, in his impatience, his hopes here and to come for the servile condition of an inferior being.”
“A dog who dies in discharging his duty,” said the knight sternly, “is better than a man who survives the desertion of it. Leave me, Hakim; thou hast, on this side of miracle, the most wonderful science which man ever possessed, but the wounds of the spirit are beyond thy power.”
“Not if the patient will explain his calamity, and be guided by the physician,” said Adonbec el Hakim.
“Know, then,” said Sir Kenneth, “since thou art so importunate, that last night the Banner of England was displayed from this mound—I was its appointed guardian—morning is now breaking—there lies the broken banner-spear, the standard itself is lost, and here sit I a living man!”
“How!” said El Hakim, examining him; “thy armour is whole—there is no blood on thy weapons, and report speaks thee one unlikely to return thus from fight. Thou hast been trained from thy post—ay, trained by the rosy cheek and black eye of one of those houris, to whom you Nazarenes vow rather such service as is due to Allah, than such love as may lawfully be rendered to forms of clay like our own. It has been thus assuredly; for so hath man ever fallen, even since the days of Sultan Adam.”
“And if it were so, physician,” said Sir Kenneth sullenly, “what remedy?”
“Knowledge is the parent of power,” said El Hakim, “as valour supplies strength. Listen to me. Man is not as a tree, bound to one spot of earth; nor is he framed to cling to one bare rock, like the scarce animated shell-fish. Thine own Christian writings command thee, when persecuted in one city, to flee to another; and we Moslem also know that Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah, driven forth from the holy city of Mecca, found his refuge and his helpmates at Medina.”
“And what does this concern me?” said the Scot.
“Much,” answered the physician. “Even the sage flies the tempest which he cannot control. Use thy speed, therefore, and fly from the vengeance of Richard to the shadow of Saladin's victorious banner.”