"I fear so, unless the saints help them," answered Egbert. "Alas!
I fear so."

"Will not Saladin be merciful?" he asked again.

"Why should he be merciful, my son, since they have refused his
terms and defied him? Nay, he has sworn that as Godfrey took the
place nigh upon a hundred years ago and slaughtered the Mussulmen
who dwelt there by thousands, men, women, and children together,
so will he do to the Christians. Oh! why should he spare them?
They must die! They must die!" and wringing his hands Egbert left
the tent.

Godwin lay still, wondering what the answer to this riddle might
be. He could think of one, and one only. In Jerusalem was
Rosamund, the Sultan's niece, whom he must desire to recapture,
above all things, not only because she was of his blood, but
since he feared that if he did not do so his vision concerning
her would come to nothing.

Now what was this vision? That through Rosamund much slaughter
should be spared. Well, if Jerusalem were saved, would not tens
of thousands of Moslem and Christian lives be saved also? Oh!
surely here was the answer, and some angel had put it into his
heart, and now he prayed for strength to plant it in the heart of
Saladin, for strength and opportunity.

This very day Godwin found the opportunity. As he lay dozing in
his tent that evening, being still too weak to rise, a shadow
fell upon him, and opening his eyes he saw the Sultan himself
standing alone by his bedside. Now he strove to rise to salute
him, but in a kind voice Saladin bade him lie still, and seating
himself, began to talk.

"Sir Godwin," he said, "I am come to ask your pardon. When I
sent you to visit that dead woman, who had suffered justly for
her crime, I did an act unworthy of a king. But my heart was
bitter against her and you, and the imaum, he whom you smote, put
into my mind the trick that cost him his eye and almost cost a
worn-out and sorrowful man his life. I have spoken."

"I thank you, sire, who were always noble," answered Godwin.

"You say so. Yet I have done things to you and yours that you can
scarcely hold as noble," said Saladin. "I stole your cousin from
her home, as her mother had been stolen from mine, paying back
ill with ill, which is against the law, and in his own hall my
servants slew her father and your uncle, who was once my friend.
Well, these things I did because a fate drove me on--the fate of
a dream, the fate of a dream. Say, Sir Godwin, is that story
wh