It was: “Behind me the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, into which, if my flanks were turned, I should be driven, I and all my host. In front the territories of the Franks, where I have no friend; and by Nazareth their great army. Allah alone can help me. If they sit still and force me to advance across the desert and attack them before my army melts away, then I am lost. If they advance upon me round the Mountain Tabor and by the watered land, I may be lost. But if—oh! if Allah should make them mad, and they should strike straight across the desert—then, then they are lost, and the reign of the Cross in Syria is forever at an end. I will wait here. I will wait here.... .”
Look! near to the pavilion of Saladin stood another tent, closely guarded, and in it on a cushioned bed lay two women. One was Rosamund, but she slept sound; and the other was Masouda, and she was waking, for her eyes met his in the darkness.
The last veil was withdrawn, and now Godwin saw a sight at which his soul shivered. A fire-blackened plain, and above it a frowning mountain, and that mountain thick, thick with dead, thousands and thousands and thousands of dead, among which the hyenas wandered and the night-birds screamed. He could see their faces, many of them he knew again as those of living men whom he had met in Jerusalem and elsewhere, or had noted with the army. He could hear also the moanings of the few who were yet alive.
About that field—yes, and in the camp of Saladin, where lay more dead—his body seemed to wander searching for something, he knew not what, till it came to him that it was the corpse of Wulf for which he sought and found it not—nay, nor his own either. Then once more he heard the spirits pass—a very great company, for to them were gathered all those dead—heard them pass away, wailing, ever more faintly wailing for the lost cause of Christ, wailing over Nazareth.
Godwin awoke from his dream trembling, mounted his horse, and rode back to Wulf. Beneath, as before, lay the sleeping camp, yonder stretched the brown desert, and there sat Wulf watching both.
“Tell me,” asked Godwin, “how long is it since I left you?”
“Some few minutes—ten perhaps,” answered his brother.
“A short while to have seen so much,” replied Godwin. Then Wulf looked at him curiously and asked:
“What have you seen?”
“If I told you, Wulf, you would not believe.”