“Henceforth through life, through death, we serve two ladies,” and what he did Wulf did also.

“Mayhap,” she answered sadly; “two ladies—­but one love.”

Then they went, and, creeping through the bushes to the path, wandered about awhile among the revellers and came to the guest-house safely.

Once more it was night, and high above the mountain fortress of Masyaf shone the full summer moon, lighting crag and tower as with some vast silver lamp.  Forth from the guest-house gate rode the brethren, side by side upon their splendid steeds, and the moon-rays sparkled on their coats of mail, their polished bucklers, blazoned with the cognizance of a grinning skull, their close-fitting helms, and the points of the long, tough lances that had been given them.  Round them rode their escort, while in front and behind went a mob of people.

The nation of the Assassins had thrown off its gloom this night, for the while it was no longer oppressed even by the fear of attack from Saladin, its mighty foe.  To death it was accustomed; death was its watchword; death in many dreadful forms its daily bread.  From the walls of Masyaf, day by day, fedais went out to murder this great one, or that great one, at the bidding of their lord Sinan.

For the most part they came not back again; they waited week by week, month by month, year by year, till the moment was ripe, then gave the poisoned cup or drove home the dagger, and escaped or were slain.  Death waited them abroad, and if they failed, death waited them at home.  Their dreadful caliph was himself a sword of death.  At his will they hurled themselves from towers or from precipices; to satisfy his policy they sacrificed their wives and children.  And their reward—­in life, the drugged cup and voluptuous dreams; after it, as they believed, a still more voluptuous paradise.

All forms of human agony and doom were known to this people; but now they were promised an unfamiliar sight, that of Frankish knights slaying each other in single combat beneath the silent moon, tilting at full gallop upon a narrow place where many might hesitate to walk, and—­oh, joy!—­falling perchance, horse and rider together, into the depths below.  So they were happy, for to them this was a night of festival, to be followed by a morrow of still greater festival, when their sultan and their god took to himself this stranger beauty as a wife.  Doubtless, too, he would soon weary of her, and they would be called together to see her cast from some topmost tower and hear her frail bones break on the cruel rocks below, or—­as had happened to the last queen—­to watch her writhe out her life in the pangs of poison upon a charge of sorcery.  It was indeed a night of festival, a night filled full of promise of rich joys to come.

On rode the brethren, with stern, impassive faces, but wondering in their hearts whether they would live to see another dawn.  The shouting crowd surged round them, breaking through the circle of their guards.  A hand was thrust up to Godwin; in it was a letter, which he took and read by the bright moonlight.  It was written in English, and brief: