When they heard this saying Wulf said to Godwin, in English: 

“I think that we had best go; I do not like this company.”  But Godwin made no answer.

As they stood silent thus, not knowing what to say, a man entered through the door, and, throwing himself on his hands and knees, crawled towards the cushion through the double line of councillors or dais.

“Your report?” said Sinan in Arabic.

“Lord,” answered the man, “I acquaint you that your will has been done in the matter of the vessel.”  Then he went on speaking in a low voice, so rapidly that the brethren could scarcely hear and much less understand him.

Sinan listened, then said: 

“Let the fedai enter and make his own report, bringing with him his prisoners.”

Now one of the dais, he who sat nearest the canopy, rose and pointing towards the brethren, said.

“Touching these Franks, what is your will?”

The beady eyes, which seemed to search out their souls, fixed themselves upon them and for a long while Sinan considered.  They trembled, knowing that he was passing some judgment concerning them in his heart, and that on his next words much might hang—­even their lives.

“Let them stay here,” he said at length.  “I may have questions to ask them.”

For a time there was silence.  Sinan, Lord of Death, seemed to be lost in thought under the black shade of his canopy; the double line of dais stared at nothingness across the passage way; the giant guards stood still as statues; Masouda watched the brethren from beneath her long eye-lashes, while the brethren watched the sharp edge of the shadow of the canopy on the marble floor.  They strove to seem unconcerned, but their hearts were beating fast within them who felt that great things were about to happen, though what these might be they knew not.

So intense was the silence, so dreadful seemed that inhuman, snake-like man, so strange his aged, passionless councillors, and the place of council surrounded by a dizzy gulf, that fear took hold of them like the fear of an evil dream.  Godwin wondered if Sinan could see the ring upon his breast, and what would happen to him if he did see it; while Wulf longed to shout aloud, to do anything that would break this deathly, sunlit quiet.  To them those minutes seemed like hours; indeed, for aught they knew, they might have been hours.

At length there was a stir behind the brethren, and at a word from Masouda they separated, falling apart a pace or two, and stood opposite each other and sideways to Sinan.  Standing thus, they saw the curtains drawn.  Through them came four men, carrying a stretcher covered with a cloth, beneath which they could see the outline of a form, that lay there stirless.  The four men brought the stretcher to the front of the canopy, set it on the ground, prostrated themselves, and retired, walking backwards down the length of the terrace.