And that evening it chanced that the encampment lay amidst the ruins of some deserted dwellings on the outskirts of a walled city.
The Lady could not sleep; and as she lay awake in the silence, broken only now and then by the howling of wolves from the forest, and the baying of watch-dogs from the city, every now and then a low faint moaning fell on her ear, as if from a little distance.
At first she thought it was but some of those strange moanings which the winds make at night among the woods. She listened more intently, until she became sure that faint articulate sounds mingled with the moans, which she knew could only come from a human voice.
Softly she arose, and glided to where the sound seemed to be.
And there, in the angle of one of the charred and shattered walls, she found a young maiden stretched helplessly on a heap of dry leaves.
At the gentle tones of the Lady's voice, the maiden's eyes languidly opened.
After a time she consented to take a little food and wine from the Lady's hands: and then slowly she told how she was of the hated and hunted Hebrew race, and had lived with her people in this the Jewish Quarter, outside the city walls, until, two nights ago, a wild band of Crusaders had fallen on them at midnight, had set fire to their dwellings, and killed all who could not flee, calling them Infidels and Enemies of Christ; while she herself, long laid on a sick-bed, unable to move, had been strangely overlooked, and left there to die alone.
Many days the Lady sat beside her, and tenderly soothed and served her, refusing to abandon this destitute sufferer, even to pursue the way of the Holy Cross.
"For," she said, "I would not have Him say to me in that day, 'I was sick and a stranger, and ye visited Me not.'"
Thus the company of Crusaders went on their way; and the Lady and her son, with their retainers, were left by themselves among the ruined dwellings between the city and the forest.