-oh, joy!--falling perchance, horse and
rider together, into the depths below. So they were happy, for to
them this was a night of festival, to be followed by a morrow of
still greater festival, when their sultan and their god took to
himself this stranger beauty as a wife. Doubtless, too, he would
soon weary of her, and they would be called together to see her
cast from some topmost tower and hear her frail bones break on
the cruel rocks below, or--as had happened to the last queen--to
watch her writhe out her life in the pangs of poison upon a
charge of sorcery. It was indeed a night of festival, a night
filled full of promise of rich joys to come.

On rode the brethren, with stern, impassive faces, but wondering
in their hearts whether they would live to see another dawn. The
shouting crowd surged round them, breaking through the circle of
their guards. A hand was thrust up to Godwin; in it was a letter,
which he took and read by the bright moonlight. It was written in
English, and brief:

"I cannot speak with you. God be with you both, my brothers, God
and the spirit of my father. Strike home, Wulf, strike home,
Godwin, and fear not for me who will guard myself. Conquer or
die, and in life or death, await me. To-morrow, in the flesh, or
in the spirit, we will talk--Rosamund."

Godwin handed the paper to Wulf, and, as he did so, saw that the
guards had caught its bearer, a withered, grey-haired woman. They
asked her some questions, but she shook her head. Then they cast
her down, trampled the life out of her beneath their horses'
hoofs, and went on laughing. The mob laughed also.

"Tear that paper up," said Godwin. Wulf did so, saying:

"Our Rosamund has a brave heart. Well, we are of the same blood,
and will not fail her."

Now they were come to the open space in front of the narrow
bridge, where, tier on tier, the multitude were ranged, kept back
from its centre by lines of guards. On the flat roofed houses
also they were crowded thick as swarming bees, on the circling
walls, and on the battlements that protected the far end of the
bridge, and the houses of the outer city. Before the bridge was a
low gateway, and upon its roof sat the Al-je-bal, clad in his
scarlet robe of festival, and by his side, the moonlight gleaming
on her jewels, Rosamund. In front, draped in a rich garment, a
dagger of gems in her dark hair, stood the interpreter or "mouth"
Masouda, and behind were dais and guards.

The brethren