The two heroic monarchs--for such they both were--threw themselves at once from horseback, and the troops halting and the music suddenly ceasing, they advanced to meet each other in profound silence, and after a courteous inclination on either side they embraced as brethren and equals.

The pomp and display upon both sides attracted no further notice--no one saw aught save Richard and Saladin, and they too beheld nothing but each other.

The looks with which Richard surveyed Saladin were, however, more intently curious than those which the Soldan fixed upon him; and the Soldan also was the first to break silence.
"The Melech Ric is welcome to Saladin as water to this desert.

I trust he hath no distrust of this numerous array.

Excepting the armed slaves of my household, those who surround you with eyes of wonder and of welcome are--even the humblest of them--the privileged nobles of my thousand tribes; for who that could claim a title to be present would remain at home when such a Prince was to be seen as Richard, with the terrors of whose name, even on the sands of Yemen, the nurse stills her child, and the free Arab subdues his restive steed!" "And these are all nobles of Araby ?" said Richard, looking around on wild forms with their persons covered with haiks, their countenance swart with the sunbeams, their teeth as white as ivory, their black eyes glancing with fierce and preternatural lustre from under the shade of their turbans, and their dress being in general simple even to meanness.
"They claim such rank," said Saladin; "but though numerous, they are within the conditions of the treaty, and bear no arms but the sabre--even the iron of their lances is left behind." "I fear," muttered De Vaux in English, "they have left them where they can be soon found.