“A knight guards her prayers,” was the answer.

“Ah! as I thought, he has been beforehand with us.  Also, daughter, surely your discipline is somewhat lax if you suffer knights thus to invade your chapel.  But lead us thither.”

“The dangers of the times and of the lady must answer for it,” the abbess replied boldly, as she obeyed.

Presently they were in the great, dim place, where the lamps burned day and night.  There by the altar, built, it was said, upon the spot where the Lord stood to receive judgment, they saw a kneeling woman, who, clad in the robe of a novice, grasped the stonework with her hands.  Without the rails, also kneeling, was the knight Wulf, still as a statue on a sepulchre.  Hearing them, he rose, turned him about, and drew his great sword.

“Sheathe that sword,” commanded Heraclius.

“When I became a knight,” answered Wulf, “I swore to defend the innocent from harm and the altars of God from sacrilege at the hands of wicked men.  Therefore I sheathe not my sword.”

“Take no heed of him,” said one; and Heraclius, standing back in the aisle, addressed Rosamund: 

“Daughter,” he cried, “with bitter grief we are come to ask of you a sacrifice, that you should give yourself for the people, as our Master gave Himself for the people.  Saladin demands you as a fugitive of his blood, and until you are delivered to him he will not treat with us for the saving of the city.  Come forth, then, we pray you.”

Now Rosamund rose and faced them, with her hand resting upon the altar.

“I risked my life and I believe another gave her life,” she said, “that I might escape from the power of the Moslems.  I will not come forth to return to them.”

“Then, our need being sore, we must take you,” answered Heraclius sullenly.

“What!” she cried.  “You, the patriarch of this sacred city, would tear me from the sanctuary of its holiest altar?  Oh! then, indeed shall the curse fall upon it and you.  Hence, they say, our sweet Lord was haled to sacrifice by the command of an unjust judge, and thereafter Jerusalem was taken by the sword.  Must I too be dragged from the spot that His feet have hallowed, and even in these weeds”—­and she pointed to her white robe—­“thrown as an offering to your foes, who mayhap will bid me choose between death and the Koran?  If so, I say assuredly that offering will be made in vain, and assuredly your streets shall run red with the blood of those who tore me from my sanctuary.”

Now they consulted together, some taking one side and some the other, but the most of them declared that she must be given up to Saladin.

“Come of your own will, I pray you,” said the patriarch, “since we would not take you by force.”

“By force only will you take me,” answered Rosamund.

Then the abbess spoke.

“Sirs, will you commit so great a crime?  Then I tell you that it cannot go without its punishment.  With this lady I say”—­and she drew up her tall shape—­“that it shall be paid for in your blood, and mayhap in the blood of all of us.  Remember my words when the Saracens have won the city, and are putting its children to the sword.”