[The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott]@TWC D-Link bookThe Talisman CHAPTER XVIII 1/21
This work desires a planetary intelligence Of Jupiter and Sol; and those great spirits Are proud, fantastical.
It asks great charges To entice them from the guiding of their spheres, To wait on mortals. ALBUMAZAR. The hermit followed the ladies from the pavilion of Richard, as shadow follows a beam of sunshine when the clouds are driving over the face of the sun.
But he turned on the threshold, and held up his hand towards the King in a warning, or almost a menacing posture, as he said, "Woe to him who rejects the counsel of the church, and betaketh himself to the foul divan of the infidel! King Richard, I do not yet shake the dust from my feet and depart from thy encampment; the sword falls not--but it hangs but by a hair.
Haughty monarch, we shall meet again." "Be it so, haughty priest," returned Richard, "prouder in thy goatskins than princes in purple and fine linen." The hermit vanished from the tent, and the King continued, addressing the Arabian, "Do the dervises of the East, wise Hakim, use such familiarity with their princes ?" "The dervise," replied Adonbec, "should be either a sage or a madman; there is no middle course for him who wears the khirkhah, [Literally, the torn robe.
The habit of the dervises is so called.] who watches by night, and fasts by day.
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