In the third morning Godwin awoke to see the ray of
sunrise streaming through the latticed window.
They fell upon another bed near-by where Wulf still
lay sleeping, a bandage on his head that had been
hurt in the last charge against the Assassins, and
other bandages about his arms and body, which were
much bruised in the fight upon the dreadful bridge.
Wondrous was it to Godwin to watch him lying there
sleeping healthily, notwithstanding his injuries,
and to think of what they had gone through together
with so little harm; to think, also, of how they had
rescued Rosamund out of the very mouth of that earthly
hell of which he could see the peaks through the open
window-place—out of the very hands of that
fiend, its ruler. Reckoning the tale day by day,
he reflected on their adventures since they landed
at Beirut, and saw how Heaven had guided their every
step.
In face of the warnings that were given them, to visit
the Al-je-bal in his stronghold had seemed a madness.
Yet there, where none could have thought that she
would be, they had found Rosamund. There they
had been avenged upon the false knight Sir Hugh Lozelle,
who had betrayed her, first to Saladin, then to Sinan,
and sent him down to death and judgment; and thence
they had rescued Rosamund.
Oh, how wise they had been to obey the dying words
of their uncle, Sir Andrew, who doubtless was given
foresight at the end! God and His saints had
helped them, who could not have helped themselves,
and His minister had been Masouda. But for Masouda,
Rosamund would by now be lost or dead, and they, if
their lives were still left to them, would be wanderers
in the great land of Syria, seeking for one who never
could be found.
Why had Masouda done these things, again and again
putting her own life upon the hazard to save theirs
and the honour of another woman? As he asked
himself the question Godwin felt the red blood rise
to his face. Because she hated Sinan, who had
murdered her parents and degraded her, she said; and
doubtless that had to do with the matter. But
it was no longer possible to hide the truth.
She loved him, and had loved him from the first hour
when they met. He had always suspected it—in
that wild trial of the horses upon the mountain side,
when she sat with her arms about him and her face
pressed against his face; when she kissed his feet
after he had saved her from the lion, and many another
time.
But as they followed Wulf and Rosamund up the mountain
pass while the host of the Assassins thundered at
their heels, and in broken gasps she had told him
of her sad history, then it was that he grew sure.
Then, too, he had said that he held her not vile, but
noble, as indeed he did; and, thinking their death
upon them, she had answered that she held him dear,
and looked on him as a woman looks upon her only love—a
message in her eyes that no man could fail to read.
Yet if this were so, why had Masouda saved Rosamund,
the lady to whom she knew well that he was sworn?
Reared among those cruel folk who could wade to their
desire through blood and think it honour, would she
not have left her rival to her doom, seeing that oaths
do not hold beyond the grave?
