uda was weeping also.

"Why do you weep?" she asked.

"The maid should copy her mistress," answered Masouda with a hard
laugh; "but, lady, why do you weep? At least you are beloved,
and, come what may, nothing can take that from you. You are not
of less value than the good horse between the rider's knees, or
the faithful hound that runs at his side."

A thought rose in Rosamund's mind--a new and terrible thought.
The eyes of the two women met, and those of Rosamund asked,
"Which?" anxiously as once in the moonlight she had asked it with
her voice from the gate above the Narrow Way. Between them stood
a table inlaid with ivory and pearl, whereon the dust from the
street had gathered through the open lattice. Masouda leaned
over, and with her forefinger wrote a single Arabic letter in the
dust upon the table, then passed her hand across it.

Rosamund's breast heaved twice or thrice and was still. Then she
asked:

"Why did not you who are free go with him?"

"Because he prayed me to bide here and watch over the lady whom
he loved. So to the death--I watch."

Slowly Masouda spoke, and the heavy words seemed like blood
dropping from a death wound. Then she sank forward into the arms
of Rosamund.

Chapter Eighteen: Wulf Pays for the Drugged Wine

Many a day had gone by since the brethren bade farewell to
Rosamund at Damascus. Now, one burning July night, they sat upon
their horses, the moonlight gleaming on their mail. Still as
statues they sat, looking out from a rocky mountain top across
that grey and arid plain which stretches from near Nazareth to
the lip of the hills at whose foot lies Tiberias on the Sea of
Galilee. Beneath them, camped around the fountain of Seffurieh,
were spread the hosts of the Franks to which they did sentinel;
thirteen hundred knights, twenty thousand foot, and hordes of
Turcopoles--that is, natives of the country, armed after the
fashion of the Saracens. Two miles away to the southeast
glimmered the white houses of Nazareth, set in the lap of the
mountains. Nazareth, the holy city, where for thirty years lived
and toiled the Saviour of the world. Doubtless, thought Godwin,
His feet had often trod that mountain whereon they stood, and in
the watered vales below His hands had sped the plow or reaped the
corn. Long, long had His voice been silent, yet to Godwin's ears
it still seemed to speak in the murmur of the vast camp, and to
echo from the slopes of the Galilean hills, and the