horror in his heart, Godwin held down the lamp and
looked. Oh! those robes were red, and those lips were ashen. It
was Masouda, whose spirit had passed him in the desert; Masouda,
slain by the headsman's sword! This was the evil jest that had
been played upon him, and thus--thus they met again.

Godwin rose to his feet and stood over her still shape as a man
stands in a dream, while words broke from his lips and a fountain
in his heart was unsealed.

"Masouda," he whispered, "I know now that I love you and you
only, henceforth and forever, O woman with a royal heart. Wait
for me, Masouda, wherever you may dwell."

While the whispered words left his lips, it seemed to Godwin that
once more, as when he rode with Wulf from Ascalon, the strange
wind blew about his brow, bringing with it the presence of
Masouda, and that once more the unearthly peace sank into his
soul.

Then all was past and over, and he turned to see the old imaum
standing at his side.

"Did I not tell you that you would find her sleeping?" he said,
with his bitter, chuckling laugh. "Call on her, Sir Knight; call
on her! Love, they say, can bridge great gulfs--even that between
severed neck and bosom."

With the silver lamp in his hand Godwin smote, and the man went
down like a felled ox, leaving him once more in silence and in
darkness.

For a moment Godwin stood thus, till his brain was filled with
fire, and he too fell--fell across the corpse of Masouda, and
there lay still.

Chapter Twenty-two: At Jerusalem

Godwin knew that he lay sick, but save that Masouda seemed to
tend him in his sickness he knew no more, for all the past had
gone from him. There she was always, clad in a white robe, and
looking at him with eyes full of ineffable calm and love, and he
noted that round her neck ran a thin, red line, and wondered how
it came there.

He knew also that he travelled while he was ill, for at dawn he
would hear the camp break up with a mighty noise, and feel his
litter lifted by slaves who bore him along for hours across the
burning sand, till at length the evening came, and with a humming
sound, like the sound of hiving bees, the great army set its
bivouac. Then came the night and the pale moon floating like a
boat upon the azure sea above, and everywhere the bright, eternal
stars, to which went up the constant cry of "Allahu Akbar! Allahu
Akbar! God is the greatest, there is none but He."

"It is a false god," he would say. "Tell