uld be. If her spirit is high enough, Jerusalem may yet be
saved. If it be baser than I thought, as well may chance, then
assuredly with her it is doomed. I have no more to say, but my
envoys shall ride with you bearing a letter, which with their own
hands they must present to my niece, the princess of Baalbec.
Then she can return with them to me, or she can bide where she
is, when I shall know that I saw but a lying vision of peace and
mercy flowing from her hands, and will press on this war to its
bloody end."

Within an hour Balian rode to the city under safe conduct, taking
with him the envoys of Saladin and the letter, which they were
charged to deliver to Rosamund.

It was night, and in their lamp-lit chapel the Virgins of the
Holy Cross upon bended knees chanted the slow and solemn
Miserere. From their hearts they sang, to whom death and
dishonour were so near, praying their Lord and the merciful
Mother of God to have pity, and to spare them and the
inhabitants of the hallowed town where He had dwelt and suffered,
and to lead them safe through the shadow of a fate as awful as
His own. They knew that the end was near, that the walls were
tottering to their fall, that the defenders were exhausted, and
that soon the wild soldiers of Saladin would be surging through
the narrow streets.

Then would come the sack and the slaughter, either by the sword
of the Saracens, or, perchance, if these found time and they were
not forgotten, more mercifully at the hands of Christian men, who
thus would save them from the worst.

Their dirge ended, the abbess rose and addressed them. Her
bearing was still proud, but her voice quavered.

"My daughters in the Lord," she said, "the doom is almost at our
door, and we must brace our hearts to meet it. If the commanders
of the city do what they have promised, they will send some here
to behead us at the last, and so we shall pass happily to glory
and be ever with the Lord. But perchance they will forget us, who
are but a few among eighty thousand souls, of whom some fifty
thousand must thus be killed. Or their arms may grow weary, or
themselves they may fall before ever they reach this house--and
what, my daughters, shall we do then?"

Now some of the nuns clung together and sobbed in their affright,
and some were silent. Only Rosamund drew herself to her full
height, and spoke proudly.

"My Mother," she said, "I am a newcomer among you, but I have
seen the slaughter of Hatt