“‘Are you, then, weary of life?’ I asked. ‘Fool, the Al-je-bal himself would keep a tryst within this house, which he enters secretly from the palace. Woe to you if he does not find his lady there!’
“‘It is the Signet that he must have sent, sure enough,’ the captain said again, ‘to disobey which is death.’
“‘Yes, open, open,’ whispered his companions.
“So they opened, though doubtfully, and we entered, and I barred the door behind us. Then, to be short, through the darkness of the tower basement, guiding ourselves by the wall, we crept to the entrance of that way of which I know the secret. Ay, and along all its length and through the rock door of escape at the end which I set so that none can turn it, save skilled masons with their tools, and into the cave where we found you. It was no great matter, having the Signet, although without the Signet it had not been possible to-night, when every gate is guarded.”
“No great matter!” gasped Rosamund. “Oh, Godwin and Wulf! if you could know how she thought of and made ready everything; if you could have seen how all those cruel men glared at us, searching out our very souls! If you could have heard how high she answered them, waving that ring before their eyes and bidding them to obey its presence, or to die!”
“Which they surely have done by now,” broke in Masouda quietly, “though I do not pity them, who were wicked. Nay; thank me not; I have done what I promised to do, neither less nor more, and—I love danger and a high stake. Tell us your story, Sir Godwin.”
So, seated there on the grass in the darkness, he told them of their mad ride and of the slaying of the guards, while Rosamund raised her hands and thanked Heaven for its mercies, and that they were without those accursed walls.
“You may be within them again before sunset,” said Masouda grimly.
“Yes,” answered Wulf, “but not alive. Now what plan have you? To ride for the coast towns?”
“No,” replied Masouda; “at least not straight, since to do so we must pass through the country of the Assassins, who by this day’s light will be warned to watch for us. We must ride through the desert mountain lands to Emesa, many miles away, and cross the Orontes there, then down into Baalbec, and so back to Beirut.”