“What can we give you, O Queen,” asked the abbess, “who have nothing left save our treasure, to which you are most welcome, our honour, and our lives?”

“Alas!” answered the royal lady.  “Alas, that I must say it!  I come to ask the life of one of you.”

“Of whom, O Queen?”

Sybilla lifted her head, and with her outstretched arm pointed to Rosamund, who stood above them all by the high altar.

For a moment Rosamund turned pale, then spoke in a steady voice: 

“Say, what service can my poor life be to you, O Queen, and by whom is it sought?”

Thrice Sybilla strove to answer, and at last murmured: 

“I cannot.  Let the envoys give her the letter, if she is able to read their tongue.”

“I am able,” answered Rosamund, and a Saracen emir drew forth a roll and laid it against his forehead, then gave it to the abbess, who brought it to Rosamund.  With her dagger blade she cut its silk, opened it, and read aloud, always in the same quiet voice, translating as she read:—­

“In the name of Allah the One, the All-merciful, to my niece, aforetime the princess of Baalbec, Rosamund D’Arcy by name, now a fugitive hidden in a convent of the Franks in the city el-Kuds Esh-sherif, the holy city of Jerusalem: 

“Niece,—­All my promises to you I have performed, and more, since for your sake I spared the lives of your cousins, the twin knights.  But you have repaid me with ingratitude and trickery, after the manner of those of your false and accursed faith, and have fled from me.  I promised you also, again and yet again, that if you attempted this thing, death should be your portion.  No longer, therefore, are you the princess of Baalbec, but only an escaped Christian slave, and as such doomed to die whenever my sword reaches you.

“Of my vision concerning you, which caused me to bring you to the East from England, you know well.  Repeat it in your heart before you answer.  That vision told me that by your nobleness and sacrifice you should save the lives of many.  I demanded that you should be brought back to me, and the request was refused—­why, it matters not.  Now I understand the reason—­that this was so ordained.  I demand no more that force should be used to you.  I demand that you shall come of your own free will, to suffer the bitter and shameful reward of your sin.  Or, if you so desire, bide where you are of your own free will, and be dealt with as God shall decree.  This hangs upon your judgment.  If you come and ask it of me, I will consider the question of the sparing of Jerusalem and its inhabitants.  If you refuse to come, I will certainly put every one of them to the sword, save such of the women and children as may be kept for slaves.  Decide, then, Niece, and quickly, whether you will return with my envoys, or bide where they find you.—­

“Yusuf Salah-ed-din.”

Rosamund finished reading, and the letter fluttered from her hand down to the marble floor.