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 thei