THE TWO CAPTAINS.
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me, thy fellow-man, who must otherwise perish with thirst!" Then
remembering that the tones of his dear German mother tongue were not
intelligible in this joyless region, he repeated the same words in
the mixed dialect, generally called the Lingua Romana, universally
used by heathens, Mohammedans, and Christians in those parts of the
world where they have most intercourse with each other.

The Arab still remained silent, and looked as if scornfully laughing
at his strange discovery. At length he replied, in the same dialect,
"I was also in Barbarossa's fight; and if, Sir Knight, our overthrow
bitterly enraged me then, I find no small compensation for it in the
fact of seeing one of the conquerors lying so pitifully before me."
"Pitifully!" exclaimed Heimbert angrily, and his wounded sense of
honor giving him back for a moment all his strength, he seized his
sword and stood ready for an encounter. "Oho!" laughed the Arab,
"does the Christian viper still hiss so strongly? Then it only
behooves me to put spurs to my horse and leave thee to perish here,
thou lost creeping worm!" "Ride to the devil, thou dog of a
heathen!" retorted Heimbert; "rather than entreat a crumb of thee I
will die here, unless the good God sends me manna in the wilderness."

And the Arab spurred forward his swift steed and galloped away a
couple of hundred paces, laughing with scorn. Then he paused, and
looking round to Heimbert he trotted back and said, "Thou seemest too
good, methinks, to perish here of hunger and thirst. Beware! my good
sabre shall touch thee."

Heimbert, who had again stretched himself hopelessly on the burning
sand, was quickly roused to his feet by these words, and seized his
sword; and sudden as was the spring with which the Arab's horse flew
toward him, the stout German warrior stood ready to parry the blow,
and the thrust which the Arab aimed at him in the Mohammedan manner
he warded off with certainty and skill.

Again and again the Arab sprung; similarly here and there, vainly
hoping to give his antagonist a death-blow. At last, overcome by
impatience, he approached so boldly that Heimbert, warding off the