As it happened, at the full tide they floated off the bank and drifted with the ebb down towards the sea. At the first break of dawn she looked up, and there, looming large in the mist, lay a galley, anchored in the mouth of the river. Giving thanks to Allah for their safe arrival, the band brought her aboard and led her towards the cabin. On the poop stood a tall man, who was commanding the sailors that they should get up the anchor. As she came he advanced to her, bowing and saying:
“Lady Rosamund, thus you find me once more, who doubtless you never thought to see again.”
She looked at him in the faint light and her blood went cold. It was the knight Lozelle.
“You here, Sir Hugh?” she gasped.
“Where you are, there I am,” he answered, with a sneer upon his coarse, handsome face. “Did I not swear that it should be so, beauteous Rosamund, after your saintly cousin worsted me in the fray?”
“You here?” she repeated, “you, a Christian knight, and in the pay of Saladin!”
“In the pay of anyone who leads me to you, Rosamund.” Then, seeing the emir Hassan approach, he turned to give some orders to the sailors, and she passed on to the cabin and in her agony fell upon her knees.
When Rosamund rose from them she felt that the ship was moving, and, desiring to look her last on Essex land, went out again upon the poop, where Hassan and Sir Hugh placed themselves, one upon either side of her. Then it was that she saw the tower of St. Peter’s-on-the-Wall and her cousins seated on horseback in front of it, the light of the risen sun shining upon their mail. Also she saw Wulf spur his horse into the sea, and faintly heard his great cry of “Fear not! We follow, we follow!”
A thought came to her, and she sprang towards the bulwark; but they were watching and held her, so that all that she could do was to throw up her arms in token.
Now the wind caught the sail and the ship went forward swiftly, so that soon she lost sight of them. Then in her grief and rage Rosamund turned upon Sir Hugh Lozelle and beat him with bitter words till he shrank before her.