“Let us be going,” said Wulf; “here is another of them with her accursed cup.”
But before they could turn the woman glided up to them and suddenly unveiled. It was Masouda.
“Follow me, brothers Peter and John,” she said in a laughing whisper. “I have words to say to you. What! you will not drink? Well, it is wisest.” And emptying the cup upon the ground she flitted ahead of them.
Silently as a wraith she went, now appearing in the open spaces, now vanishing, beneath the dense gloom of cedar boughs, till she reached a naked, lonely rock which stood almost upon the edge of the gulf. Opposite to this rock was a great mound such as ancient peoples reared over the bodies of their dead, and in the mound, cunningly hidden by growing shrubs, a massive door.
Masouda took a key from her girdle, and, having looked around to see that they were alone, unlocked it.
“Enter,” she said, pushing them before her. They obeyed, and through the darkness within heard her close the door.
“Now we are safe awhile,” she said with a sigh, “or, at least, so I think. But I will lead you to where there is more light.”
Then, taking each of them by the hand, she went forward along a smooth incline, till presently they saw the moonlight, and by it discovered that they stood at the mouth of a cave which was fringed with bushes. Running up from the depths of the gulf below to this opening was a ridge or shoulder of rock, very steep and narrow.
“See the only road that leads from the citadel of Masyaf save that across the bridge,” said Masouda.
“A bad one,” answered Wulf, staring downward.