“May it lead us nowhere worse,” answered Godwin with something like a groan, for he remembered that dream of his which he dreamed in mid-air between the edges of black rock with the bubbling foam beneath.

But to Wulf he said nothing of this dream.

When the sun was fully up they prepared to go out again, taking with them the gold to pay the Arab; but on opening the door of their room they met Masouda, apparently about to knock upon it.

“Whither go you, friends Peter and John, and so early?” she asked, looking at them with a smile upon her beautiful face that was so thrilling and seemed to hide so much mystery.

Godwin thought to himself that it was like another smile, that on the face of the woman-headed, stone sphinx which they had seen set up in the market place of Beirut.

“To visit our horses and pay your uncle, the Arab, his money,” answered Wulf.

“Indeed!  I thought I saw you do the first an hour ago, and as for the second, it is useless; Son of the Sand has gone.”

“Gone!  With the horses?”

“Nay, he has left them behind.”

“Did you pay him, then, lady?” asked Godwin.

It was easy to see that Masouda was pleased at this courteous word, for her voice, which in general seemed a little hard, softened as she answered, for the first time giving him his own title.

“Why do you call me ‘lady,’ Sir Godwin D’Arcy, who am but an inn-keeper, for whom sometimes men find hard names?  Well, perhaps I was a lady once before I became an inn-keeper; but now I am—­the widow Masouda, as you are the pilgrim Peter.  Still, I thank you for this—­bad guess of yours.”  Then stepping back a foot or two towards the door, which she had closed behind her, she made him a curtsey so full of dignity and grace that any who saw it must be sure that, wherever she might dwell, Masouda was not bred in inns.

Godwin returned the bow, doffing his cap.  Their eyes met and in hers he learned that he had no treachery to fear from this woman, whatever else he might have to fear.  Indeed, from that moment, however black and doubtful seemed the road, he would have trusted his life to her; for this was the message written there, a message which she meant that he should read.  Yet at his heart he felt terribly afraid.

Wulf, who saw something of all this and guessed more, also was afraid.  He wondered what Rosamund would have thought of it, if she had seen that strange and turbulent look in the eyes of this woman who had been a lady and was an inn-keeper; of one whom men called Spy, and daughter of Satan, and child of Al-je-bal.  To his fancy that look was like a flash of lightning upon a dark night, which for a second illumines some magical, unguessed landscape, after which comes the night again, blacker than before.

Now the widow Masouda was saying in her usual somewhat hard voice: