Then again they got them to their knees and sang the Miserere.

Presently, above their mournful chant, the sound of loud, insistent knockings echoed down the vaulted roofs.  They sprang up screaming: 

“The Saracens are here!  Give us knives!  Give us knives!”

Rosamund drew the dagger from its sheath.

“Wait awhile,” cried the abbess.  “These may be friends, not foes.  Sister Ursula, go to the door and seek tidings.”

The sister, an aged woman, obeyed with tottering steps, and, reaching the massive portal, undid the guichet, or lattice, and asked with a quavering voice: 

“Who are you that knock?” while the nuns within held their breath and strained their ears to catch the answer.

Presently it came, in a woman’s silvery tones, that sounded strangely still and small in the spaces of that tomb-like church.

“I am the Queen Sybilla, with her ladies.”

“And what would you with us, O Queen?  The right of sanctuary?”

“Nay; I bring with me some envoys from Saladin, who would have speech with the lady named Rosamund D’Arcy, who is among you.”

Now at these words Rosamund fled to the altar, and stood there, still holding the naked dagger in her hand.

“Let her not fear,” went on the silvery voice, “for no harm shall come to her against her will.  Admit us, holy Abbess, we beseech you in the name of Christ.”

Then the abbess said, “Let us receive the queen with such dignity as we may.”  Motioning to the nuns to take their appointed seats. in the choir she placed herself in the great chair at the head of them, whilst behind her at the raised altar stood Rosamund, the bare knife in her hand.

The door was opened, and through it swept a strange procession.  First came the beauteous queen wearing her insignia of royalty, but with a black veil upon her head.  Next followed ladies of her court—­twelve of them—­trembling with fright but splendidly apparelled, and after these three stern and turbaned Saracens clad in mail, their jewelled scimitars at their sides.  Then appeared a procession of women, most of them draped in mourning, and leading scared children by the hand; the wives, sisters, and widows of nobles, knights and burgesses of Jerusalem.  Last of all marched a hundred or more of captains and warriors, among them Wulf, headed by Sir Balian and ended by the patriarch Heraclius in his gorgeous robes, with his attendant priests and acolytes.

On swept the queen, up the length of the long church, and as she came the abbess and her nuns rose and bowed to her, while one offered her the chair of state that was set apart to be used by the bishop in his visitations.  But she would have none of it.

“Nay,” said the queen, “mock me with no honourable seat who come here as a humble suppliant, and will make my prayer upon my knees.”

So down she went upon the marble floor, with all her ladies and the following women, while the solemn Saracens looked at her wondering and the knights and nobles massed themselves behind.