round and saw Masouda watching them. The moonlight shone
full upon her face, and by it he saw also that tears were running
from her dark and tender eyes. Back he came again, and with him
Wulf, for that sight drew them. Down he bent before her till his
knee touched the ground, and, taking her hand, he kissed it, and
said in his gentle voice:

"Henceforth through life, through death, we serve two ladies,"
and what he did Wulf did also.

"Mayhap," she answered sadly; "two ladies--but one love."

Then they went, and, creeping through the bushes to the path,
wandered about awhile among the revellers and came to the
guest-house safely.

Once more it was night, and high above the mountain fortress of
Masyaf shone the full summer moon, lighting crag and tower as
with some vast silver lamp. Forth from the guest-house gate rode
the brethren, side by side upon their splendid steeds, and the
moon-rays sparkled on their coats of mail, their polished
bucklers, blazoned with the cognizance of a grinning skull, their
close-fitting helms, and the points of the long, tough lances
that had been given them. Round them rode their escort, while in
front and behind went a mob of people.

The nation of the Assassins had thrown off its gloom this night,
for the while it was no longer oppressed even by the fear of
attack from Saladin, its mighty foe. To death it was accustomed;
death was its watchword; death in many dreadful forms its daily
bread. From the walls of Masyaf, day by day, fedais went out to
murder this great one, or that great one, at the bidding of their
lord Sinan.

For the most part they came not back again; they waited week by
week, month by month, year by year, till the moment was ripe,
then gave the poisoned cup or drove home the dagger, and escaped
or were slain. Death waited them abroad, and if they failed,
death waited them at home. Their dreadful caliph was himself a
sword of death. At his will they hurled themselves from towers or
from precipices; to satisfy his policy they sacrificed their
wives and children. And their reward--in life, the drugged cup
and voluptuous dreams; after it, as they believed, a still more
voluptuous paradise.

All forms of human agony and doom were known to this people; but
now they were promised an unfamiliar sight, that of Frankish
knights slaying each other in single combat beneath the silent
moon, tilting at full gallop upon a narrow place where many might
hesitate to walk, and-