two hours after noon
The Sheikh , who had a feud with a neighbouring tribe , and had been anxious and vigilant while they crossed the open country , riding on with an advanced guard before his charge , reconnoitring from sandhill to sandhill , often creeping up and lying on his breast , so as not to be visible to the enemy , congratulated Tancred that all imminent danger was past . ` Not that I am afraid of them , ' said Hassan , proudly ; ` but we must kill them or they will kill us . ' Hassan , though Sheikh of his own immediate family and followers , was dependent on the great Sheikh of the Jellaheen tribe , and was bound to obey his commands in case the complete clan were summoned to congregate in any particular part of the desert . -LSB- Illustration : page2-083 -RSB- On the morrow they commenced their passage of the mountains , and , after clearing several ranges found themselves two hours after noon in a defile so strangely beautiful that to behold it would alone have repaid all the exertions and perils of the expedition . It was formed by precipitous rocks of a picturesque shape and of great height , and of colours so brilliant and so blended that to imagine them you must fancy the richest sunset you have ever witnessed , and that would be inferior , from the inevitable defect of its fleeting character . Here the tints , sometimes vivid , sometimes shadowed down , were always equally fair : light blue heights , streaked , perhaps , with scarlet and shaded off to lilac or purple ; a cleft of bright orange ; a broad peach-coloured expanse , veined in delicate circles and wavy lines of exquisite grace ; sometimes yellow and purple stripes ; sometimes an isolated steep of every hue flaming in the sun , and then , like a young queen on a gorgeous throne , from a vast rock of crimson , and gold rose a milk-white summit . The frequent fissures of this defile were filled with rich woods of oleander and shrubs of every shade of green , from which rose acacia , and other trees unknown to Tancred .