hen the mist rolled down on us again, and our prospect was
limited to ten yards of vapour.

'Steady,' I cried; 'they may try to rush us at any moment. Every man
keep his eye on the edge of the fog, and shoot at the first sign.'

For nearly half an hour by my watch we waited in that queer white
world, our eyes smarting with the strain of peering. The sound of the
guns seemed to be hushed, and everything grown deathly quiet.
Blenkiron's squeal, as he knocked his wounded leg against a rock, made
every man start.

Then out of the mist there came a voice.

It was a woman's voice, high, penetrating, and sweet, but it spoke in
no tongue I knew. Only Sandy understood. He made a sudden movement as
if to defend himself against a blow.

The speaker came into clear sight on the glacis a yard or two away.
Mine was the first face she saw.

'I come to offer terms,' she said in English. 'Will you permit me to
enter?'

I could do nothing except take off my cap and say, 'Yes, ma'am.'

Blenkiron, snuggled up against the parapet, was cursing furiously below
his breath.

She climbed up the _kranz_ and stepped over the edge as lightly as a
deer. Her clothes were strange--spurred boots and breeches over which
fell a short green kirtle. A little cap skewered with a jewelled pin
was on her head, and a cape of some coarse country cloth hung from her
shoulders. She had rough gauntlets on her hands, and she carried for
weapon a riding-whip. The fog-crystals clung to her hair, I remember,
and a silvery film of fog lay on her garments.

I had never before thought of her as beautiful. Strange, uncanny,
wonderful, if you like, but the word beauty had too kindly and human a
sound for such a face. But as she stood with heightened colour, her
eyes like stars, her poise like a wild bird's, I had to confess that
she had her own loveliness. She might be a devil, but she was also a
queen. I considered that there might be merits in the prospect of
riding by her side into Jerusalem.

Sandy stood rigid, his face very grave and set. She held out both
hands to him, speaking softly in Turkish. I noticed that the six
Companions had disappeared from the _castrol_ and were somewhere out of
sight on the farther side.

I do not know what she said, but from her tone, and above all from her
eyes, I judged that she was pleading--pleading for his return, for his
partnership in her great adventure; pleading, for all I knew, for his
love.