“Did you not say she loved you?  Then doubtless, even if she sleeps, she, who has dwelt at Masyaf will not take your visit ill, who have ridden so far to find her,” said the imaum with a sneering laugh.  “Enter, I say.”

So Godwin took the lamp and went in, and the door was shut behind him.  Surely the place was familiar to him?  He knew that arched roof and these rough, stone walls.  Why, it was here that he had been brought to die, and through that very door the false Rosamund had come to bid him farewell, who now returned to greet her in this same darksome den.  Well, it was empty—­doubtless she would soon come, and he waited, looking at the door.  It did not stir; he heard no footsteps; nothing broke that utter silence.  He turned again and stared about him.  Something glinted on the ground yonder, towards the end of the vault, just where he had knelt before the executioner.  A shape lay there; doubtless it was Masouda, imprisoned and asleep.

“Masouda,” he said, and the sounding echoes from the arched walls answered back, “Masouda!”

He must awaken her; there was no choice.  Yes, it was she, asleep, and she still wore the royal robes of Rosamund, and a clasp of Rosamund’s still glittered on her breast.

How sound Masouda slept!  Would she never wake?  He knelt down beside her and put out his hand to lift the long hair that hid her face.

Now it touched her, and lo! the head fell over.

Then, with horror in his heart, Godwin held down the lamp and looked.  Oh! those robes were red, and those lips were ashen.  It was Masouda, whose spirit had passed him in the desert; Masouda, slain by the headsman’s sword!  This was the evil jest that had been played upon him, and thus—­thus they met again.

Godwin rose to his feet and stood over her still shape as a man stands in a dream, while words broke from his lips and a fountain in his heart was unsealed.

“Masouda,” he whispered, “I know now that I love you and you only, henceforth and forever, O woman with a royal heart.  Wait for me, Masouda, wherever you may dwell.”

While the whispered words left his lips, it seemed to Godwin that once more, as when he rode with Wulf from Ascalon, the strange wind blew about his brow, bringing with it the presence of Masouda, and that once more the unearthly peace sank into his soul.

Then all was past and over, and he turned to see the old imaum standing at his side.

“Did I not tell you that you would find her sleeping?” he said, with his bitter, chuckling laugh.  “Call on her, Sir Knight; call on her!  Love, they say, can bridge great gulfs—­even that between severed neck and bosom.”

With the silver lamp in his hand Godwin smote, and the man went down like a felled ox, leaving him once more in silence and in darkness.

For a moment Godwin stood thus, till his brain was filled with fire, and he too fell—­fell across the corpse of Masouda, and there lay still.