"Nay," said the Mussulman, smiling gravely, "think not the prince of the thousand tribes worships a symbol as do the Franks, though for the memory of her whose slender fingers wrought the emblem, I have sometimes spared the lives of those whom our laws hold accursed--but there is no God but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." Somewhat abashed Richard sat holding the scarf in his hand and murmuring half aloud, "The Provençal tongue; the cross of Aquitaine; a daughter of Frangistan." Then raising his eyes he said, with a look of painful embarrassment, "Noble Saladin, thy generous interest in the English crusader is sufficiently explained. Destroy not, I pray thee, the gratitude of the son of Eleanor by alluding to the follies of the mother." "Nay," said Saladin, satisfied that he had correctly interpreted the hereditary peculiarities, which his observant eye had detected in Richard, "the name of the beloved is secure from reproach; but my memory still looks upon her as she was, and I would fain teach my imagination to regard her as she is. Dwells she in the trembling tent of age? or has the angel Azrael drawn around her silent couch the curtain of perpetual night?" "She lives," returns Richard, proudly, "regent of my noble realm. Thousands receive benefits from her hands, which as thy poet saith, 'are the keys of the supplies of Providence.'" "I am content," replied the Saracen. "For the rest, hitherto, I have kept my secret in a house with a lock, whose key is lost, and whose door is sealed. So let it be henceforth between us. The peace of Allah rest upon Melech Ric, and may he die among his kindred." As he arose to leave the tent the voice of the muezzein was heard through the camp calling, "To prayer, to prayer." The noble chief paused upon the threshold, and turning his face toward Mecca, bowed his forehead to the dust, and reverently repeated the Mohammedan blessing.