“Open,” said Sir Andrew.  So they ripped off the canvas, two folds of it, revealing within a box of dark, foreign looking wood bound with iron bands, at which they laboured long before they could break them.  At length it was done, and there within was another box beautifully made of polished ebony, and sealed at the front and ends with a strange device.  This box had a lock of silver, to which was tied a silver key.

“At least it has not been tampered with,” said Wulf, examining the unbroken seals, but Sir Andrew only repeated: 

“Open, and be swift.  Here, Godwin, take the key, for my hand shakes with cold.”

The lock turned easily, and the seals being broken, the lid rose upon its hinges, while, as it did so, a scent of precious odours filled the place.  Beneath, covering the contents of the chest, was an oblong piece of worked silk, and lying on it a parchment.

Sir Andrew broke the thread and seal, and unrolled the parchment.  Within it was written over in strange characters.  Also, there was a second unsealed roll, written in a clerkly hand in Norman French, and headed, “Translation of this letter, in case the knight, Sir Andrew D’Arcy, has forgotten the Arabic tongue, or that his daughter, the lady Rosamund, has not yet learned the same.”

Sir Andrew glanced at both headings, then said: 

“Nay, I have not forgotten Arabic, who, while my lady lived, spoke little else with her, and who taught it to our daughter.  But the light is bad, and, Godwin, you are scholarly; read me the French.  We can compare them afterwards.”

At this moment Rosamund entered the solar from her chamber, and seeing the three of them so strangely employed, said: 

“Is it your will that I go, father?”

“No, daughter.  Since you are here, stay here.  I think that this matter concerns you as well as me.  Read on, Godwin.”

So Godwin read: 

“In the Name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate!  I, Salah-ed-din, Yusuf ibn Ayoub, Commander of the Faithful, cause these words to be written, and seal them with my own hand, to the Frankish lord, Sir Andrew D’Arcy, husband of my sister by another mother, Sitt Zobeide, the beautiful and faithless, on whom Allah has taken vengeance for her sin.  Or if he be dead also, then to his daughter and hers, my niece, and by blood a princess of Syria and Egypt, who among the English is named the lady Rose of the World.

“You, Sir Andrew, will remember how, many years ago, what we were friends, you, by an evil chance, became acquainted with my sister Zobeide, while you were a prisoner and sick in my father’s house.  How, too, Satan put it into her heart to listen to your words of love, so that she became a Cross-worshipper, and was married to you after the Frankish custom, and fled with you to England.  You will remember also, although at the time we could not recapture her from your vessel, how I sent a messenger to you, saying that soon or late I would yet tear her from your arms and deal with her as we deal with faithless women.  But within six years of that time sure news reached me that Allah had taken her, therefore I mourned for my sister and her fate awhile, and forgot her and you.