England. He delivered a sealed letter
thus superscribed--

'La tres-haulte et ma tres chere dame, Madame Jehane, Comtesse d'Anjou,
de la part le Roy Richard. Hastez tousjours.'

The letter was brought to the Old Man as he sat in his white hail among
his mutes.

'Fulness of Light,' said the Vizier, after prostrations, 'here is come a
letter from the Melek Richard, sealed, for her Highness the Golden
Rose.'

'Give it to me, Vizier,' said the Old Man, and broke the seal, and
read--

'Madame, most dear lady, in a very little while I shall be free from my
desperate nets; and then you shall be freed from yours. Keep a great
heart. After five years of endeavour at last I come quickly.--Richard of
Anjou.'

The Old Man sat stroking his fine beard for some time after he had
dismissed his Vizier. Looking straight before him down the length of his
hail, no sound broke the immense quiet under which he accomplished his
meditations of life and death. The Assassins dreaming by the walls
breathed freely through their noses.

As a small voice heard from far off in these dreams of theirs, the voice
of one calling from a distant height, came his words, 'Cogia ibn Hassan
ibn Alnouk, come and hearken.' A slim young man rose, ran forward and
fell upon his face before the throne. Once more the faint far cry came
floating, 'Bohadin son of Falmy of Balsora, come and hearken'; and
another white-robed youth followed Cogia.

'My sons,' said the Old Man, 'the word is upon you. Go to the West for
forty days. In the country of the Franks, in the south parts thereof,
but north of the great mountains, you shall find the Melek Richard,
admirable man, whom Allah longs for. Strike, my sons, but from afar (for
not otherwise shall ye dare him), and gain the gates of Paradise and the
soft-bosomed women of your dreams. Go quickly, prepare yourselves.' The
two young men crawled to kiss his foot; then they went out, and silence
folded the hail of audience once more like a wrapping.

Later in the day a slave-girl told Jehane that her master was waiting
for her. The baby was asleep in the cradle under a muslin veil; she
kissed Fulke, a fine tall boy, six and a half years old, and followed
the messenger.

The Old Man embraced her very affectionately, kissed her forehead and
raised her from her knees. 'Come and sit with me, beautiful and pious
wife, mother of my sons,' said he. 'I have many things to say to you.'

When they were close together on the