To such a pitch had the terror of his prowess extended, that not content with the reality, in itself sufficiently gloomy, the soldiers had begun to invest him with the attributes of a superhuman avenger. It was observed, that save the gold and crimson scarf which bound his iron temples, he was black from head to heel-stirrup, and spur, and crest, the trappings of his charger, and the animal itself, all dark as the raven’s wing--that, more than once since he had fought in the van of the mussulmans, strange shouts had been heard ringing above the _lelies_ of the paynim, and repeating the hallowed war-cry of the Christian in tones of hellish derision--once, too, when he had utterly destroyed a little band of templars, a maimed and wounded wretch, who had escaped from the carnage of his brethren, skulking beneath his lifeless horse, averred that, while careering at his utmost speed, the charger of the mysterious warrior had swerved in mad consternation from the consecrated banner, which had been hurled to the earth, and that the sullen head of the rider had involuntarily bowed to the saddle-bow as he dashed onward in his course of blood and ruin; and in truth there was enough of the marvellous--in the activity by which he avoided all collision with a superior force, and in the victories which he bore off day by day from the men who, till he had come upon the stage, had only fought to conquer--to palliate, if not to justify, some vague and shadowy terrors, in an age when the truth of supernatural interference, whether of saints or demons, was believed as implicitly as the holy writ. Men, who a few weeks before would have gone forth to battle against a threefold array of enemies rejoicing as if to a banquet, now fought faintly, and began to look for safety in a timely retreat, rather than in the deeds of their own right hands, as soon as they beheld the sable form of that adversary, whom all regarded as something more than a mere human foe; while many believed, that if not a natural incarnation of the evil principle, he was, at least, a mortal endowed with power to work the mischief designed for his performance, by the inveterate malignity of the arch-fiend himself. And it was a fact, very characteristic of the period at which these events occurred, that the most accomplished warriors of the time bestowed as much attention on the framing of periapt, and spell, and all the arms of spiritual war, as on their mere earthly weapons, the spear, the buckler, and the steed. The middle watch of night was long passed, and the sky was overcast with heavy clouds--what little air was stirring came in blasts as close and scorching as though they issued from the mouth of an oven. The camp of the crusaders was silent, and sleeping, all but the vigilant guards, ever on the alert to catch the faintest sound, which might portend a sally from the walls of the city, or a surprise of the indefatigable Saladin from without.