to meet my doom alone," murmured Rosamund; then
added, "Oh! I would that I were dead who have lived to bring all
this woe upon you both, and upon that great heart, Masouda. I
say, Wulf, I would that I were dead."

"Like enough the wish will be fulfilled before all is done,"
answered Wulf wearily, "only then I pray that I may be dead with
you, for now, Rosamund, Godwin has gone, forever as I fear, and
you alone are left to me. Come; let us cease complaining, since
to dwell upon these griefs cannot help us, and be thankful that
for a while, at least, we are free. Follow me, Rosamund, and we
will ride to this nunnery to find you shelter, if we may."

So they rode on through the narrow streets that were crowded with
scared people, for now the news was spread that the embassy had
rejected the terms of Saladin. He had offered to give the city
food and to suffer its inhabitants to fortify the walls, and to
hold them till the following Whitsuntide if, should no help reach
them, they would swear to surrender then. But they had answered
that while they had life they would never abandon the place where
their God had died.

So now war was before them--war to the end; and who were they
that must bear its brunt? Their leaders were slain or captive,
their king a prisoner, their soldiers skeletons on the field of
Hattin. Only the women and children, the sick, the old, and the
wounded remained--perhaps eighty thousand souls in all--but few
of whom could bear arms. Yet these few must defend Jerusalem
against the might of the victorious Saracen. Little wonder that
they wailed in the streets till the cry of their despair went up
to heaven, for in their hearts all of them knew that the holy
place was doomed and their lives were forfeited.

Pushing their path through this sad multitude, who took little
note of them, at length they came to the nunnery on the sacred
Via Dolorosa, which Wulf had seen when Godwin and he were in
Jerusalem after they had been dismissed by Saladin from Damascus.
Its door stood in the shadow of that arch where the Roman Pilate
had uttered to all generations the words "Behold the man!"

Here the porter told him that the nuns were at prayer in their
chapel. Wulf replied that he must see the lady abbess upon a
matter which would not delay, and they were shown into a cool and
lofty room. Presently the door opened, and through it came the
abbess in her white robes--a tall and stately Englishwoman, of
middle age,