“Tell you your tale first, Rosamund,” said Godwin.

She told it as shortly as she could, they listening without a word.

Then Godwin spoke and told her theirs.  Rosamund heard it, and asked a question almost in a whisper.

“Why does that beautiful dark-eyed woman befriend you?”

“I do not know,” answered Godwin, “unless it is because of the accident of my having saved her from the lion.”

Rosamund looked at him and smiled a little, and Wulf smiled also.  Then she said: 

“Blessings be on that lion and all its tribe!  I pray that she may not soon forget the deed, for it seems that our lives hang upon her favour.  How strange is this story, and how desperate our case!  How strange also that you should have come on hither against her counsel, which, seeing what we have, I think was honest?”

“We were led,” answered Godwin.  “Your father had wisdom at his death, and saw what we could not see.”

“Ay,” added Wulf, “but I would that it had been into some other place, for I fear this lord Al-je-bal at whose nod men hurl themselves to death.”

“He is hateful,” answered Rosamund, with a shudder; “worse even than the knight Lozelle; and when he fixes his eyes on me, my heart grows sick.  Oh! that we could escape this place!”

“An eel in an osier trap has more chance of freedom,” said Wulf gloomily.  “Let us at least be thankful that we are caged together—­for how long, I wonder?”

As he spoke Masouda appeared, attended by waiting women, and, bowing to Rosamund, said: 

“It is the will of the Master, lady, that I lead you to the chambers that have been made ready for you, there to rest until the hour of the feast.  Fear not; you shall meet your brethren then.  You knights have leave, if it so pleases you, to exercise your horses in the gardens.  They stand saddled in the courtyard, to which this woman will bring you,” and she pointed to one of those two maids who had cleaned the armour, “and with them are guides and an escort.”

“She means that we must go,” muttered Godwin, adding aloud, “farewell, sister, until tonight.”

So they parted, unwillingly enough.  In the courtyard they found the horses, Flame and Smoke, as they had been told, also a mounted escort of four fierce-looking fedais and an officer.  When they were in the saddle, this man, motioning to them to follow him, passed by an archway out of the courtyard into the gardens.  Hence ran a broad road strewn with sand, along which he began to gallop.  This road followed the gulf which encircled the citadel and inner town of Masyaf, that was, as it were, an island on a mountain top with a circumference of over three miles.

As they went, the gulf always on their right hand, holding in their horses to prevent their passing that of their guide, swift as it was, they saw another troop approaching them.  This was also preceded by an officer of the Assassins, as these servants of Al-je-bal were called by the Franks, and behind him, mounted on a splendid coalblack steed and followed by guards, rode a mail-clad Frankish knight.