‘It is very remarkable,’ said the Archduke.  ’What sort of years will they be?’

‘Lord,’ said the astrologers, ’they are divers in complexion; but many of them are red.’

‘I will provide that they be,’ said the Archduke.  ‘Go away.’

The Marquess sought no astrologers, but instead the Street of the Camel and Jehane’s house.  He observed this with great care, watching from an entry to see how King Richard would come out, whether attended or not.  He observed more than the house, for much more was forced upon him.  Human garbage filled the close ways of Acre, men and women marred by themselves or a hideous begetting, hairless persons and snug little chamberers, botch-faces, scald-heads, minions of many sorts, silent-footed Arabians as shameless as dogs, Greeks, pimps and panders, abominable women.  Murder was swiftly and secretly done.  Montferrat from his entry saw the manner of it.  A Norman knight called Hamon le Rotrou came out of an infamous house in the dusk, and stepped into the Street of the Camel with his cloak delicately round him.  Fine as he was, he was insanely a lover of the vile thing he had left; for he knelt down in the street to kiss her well-worn doorstep.  He knelt under the light of a small lamp, and out of the shadow behind him stepped catfoot a tall thin man, white from head to foot, who, saying ‘All hail, master,’ stabbed Hamon deep in the side.  Hamon jerked up his head, tottered, fell without more than a tired man’s sigh sideways into the arms of his killer.  This one eased his fall as tenderly as if he was upholding a girl, let him down into the kennel, drew him thence by the shoulders into the dark, and himself vanished.  Montferrat swore softly to himself, ‘That was neatly done.  I must find out who this expert may be.’  He went away full of it, having forgotten his housed enemy.

There was a Sheik Moffadin in the jail, one of the Soldan’s hostages for the return of the True Cross.  The Marquess went to see him.

‘Who of your people,’ he asked, ’is very tall and light-footed, robes him from head to foot in white linen, and kills quietly, as if he loved the dead, with an “All hail, master"?’

‘We call him an Assassin in our language,’ the Sheik replied; ’but he is not of our people by any means.  He is a servant of the Old Man who dwells on Lebanon.’

‘What old man is this, Moffadin?’

‘I can tell you no more of him,’ said the Sheik, ’save that he is master of many such men, who serve him faithfully and in silence.  But he hates the Soldan, and the Soldan him.’

‘How do they serve him, by killing?’

’Yes.  They kill whomsoever he points out, and so receive (or think to receive) a crown in Paradise.’

‘Is this old man’s name Death, by our Saviour?’ cried the Marquess.

The Sheik answered, ’His name is Sinan.  But the name of Death would suit him very well.’

‘Where should I get speech with some of his servants?’ the Marquess inquired; adding, ’For my life is in danger.  I have enemies who are irksome to me.’