The sagacious animal, on their first entrance, uttered a stifled growl, which sounded from his deep chest like distant thunder.

But he saw his master, and acknowledged his presence by wagging his tail and couching his head, abstaining from more tumultuous or noisy greeting, as if his noble instinct had taught him the propriety of silence in a sick man's chamber.
Beside the couch sat on a cushion, also composed of skins, the Moorish physician of whom Sir Kenneth had spoken, cross-legged, after the Eastern fashion.

The imperfect light showed little of him, save that the lower part of his face was covered with a long, black beard, which descended over his breast; that he wore a high TOLPACH, a Tartar cap of the lamb's wool manufactured at Astracan, bearing the same dusky colour; and that his ample caftan, or Turkish robe, was also of a dark hue.
Two piercing eyes, which gleamed with unusual lustre, were the only lineaments of his visage that could be discerned amid the darkness in which he was enveloped.
The English lord stood silent with a sort of reverential awe; for notwithstanding the roughness of his general bearing, a scene of distress and poverty, firmly endured without complaint or murmur, would at any time have claimed more reverence from Thomas de Vaux than would all the splendid formalities of a royal presence-chamber, unless that presence-chamber were King Richard's own.

Nothing was for a time heard but the heavy and regular breathings of the invalid, who seemed in profound repose.
"He hath not slept for six nights before," said Sir Kenneth, "as I am assured by the youth, his attendant." "Noble Scot," said Thomas de Vaux, grasping the Scottish knight's hand, with a pressure which had more of cordiality than he permitted his words to utter, "this gear must be amended.

Your esquire is but too evil fed and looked to." In the latter part of this speech he naturally raised his voice to its usual decided tone, The sick man was disturbed in his slumbers.
"My master," he said, murmuring as in a dream, "noble Sir Kenneth, taste not, to you as to me, the waters of the Clyde cold and refreshing after the brackish springs of Palestine ?" "He dreams of his native land, and is happy in his slumbers," whispered Sir Kenneth to De Vaux; but had scarce uttered the words, when the physician, arising from the place which he had taken near the couch of the sick, and laying the hand of the patient, whose pulse he had been carefully watching, quietly upon the couch, came to the two knights, and taking them each by the arm, while he intimated to them to remain silent, led them to the front of the hut.
"In the name of Issa Ben Mariam," he said, "whom we honour as you, though not with the same blinded superstition, disturb not the effect of the blessed medicine of which he hath partaken.