“The rest is short.  Before the two hours were gone a messenger came, saying that the Al-je-bal bade me do what he had commanded.

“‘Return,’ I answered; ’the princess adorns herself.  We follow presently alone, as it is commanded.’

“Then I threw this cloak about her and bade her be brave, and, if we failed, to choose whether she would take Sinan or death for lord.  Next, I took the ring you had, the Signet of the dead Al-je-bal, who gave it to your kinsman, and held it before the slaves, who bowed and let me pass.  We came to the guards, and to them again I showed the ring.  They bowed also, but when they saw that we turned down the passage to the left and not to the right, as we should have done to come to the doors of the inner palace, they would have stopped us.

“‘Acknowledge the Signet,’ I answered.  ’Dogs, what is it to you which road the Signet takes?’ Then they also let us pass.

“Now, following the passage, we were out of the guest house and in the gardens, and I led her to what is called the prison tower, whence runs the secret way.  Here were more guards whom I bade open in the name of Sinan.

“They said:  ’We obey not.  This place is shut save to the Signet itself.’

“‘Behold it!’ I answered.  The officer looked and said:  ’It is the very Signet, sure enough, and there is no other.’

“Yet he paused, studying the black stone veined with the red dagger and the ancient writing on it.

“‘Are you, then, weary of life?’ I asked.  ’Fool, the Al-je-bal himself would keep a tryst within this house, which he enters secretly from the palace.  Woe to you if he does not find his lady there!’

“‘It is the Signet that he must have sent, sure enough,’ the captain said again, ‘to disobey which is death.’

“‘Yes, open, open,’ whispered his companions.

“So they opened, though doubtfully, and we entered, and I barred the door behind us.  Then, to be short, through the darkness of the tower basement, guiding ourselves by the wall, we crept to the entrance of that way of which I know the secret.  Ay, and along all its length and through the rock door of escape at the end of which I set so that none can turn it, save skilled masons with their tools, and into the cave where we found you.  It was no great matter, having the Signet, although without the Signet it had not been possible to-night, when every gate is guarded.”

“No great matter!” gasped Rosamund.  “Oh, Godwin and Wulf! if you could know how she thought of and made ready everything; if you could have seen how all those cruel men glared at us, searching out our very souls!  If you could have heard how high she answered them, waving that ring before their eyes and bidding them to obey its presence, or to die!”

“Which they surely have done by now,” broke in Masouda quietly, “though I do not pity them, who were wicked.  Nay; thank me not; I have done what I promised to do, neither less nor more, and—­I love danger and a high stake.  Tell us your story, Sir Godwin.”