“For this reason, Sultan. Before God, if die we must, we will first slaughter our women and our little children, leaving you neither male nor female to enslave. We will burn the city and its wealth; we will grind the holy Rock to powder and make of the mosque el-Aksa, and the other sacred places, a heap of ruins. We will cut the throats of the five thousand followers of the Prophet who are in our power, and then, every man of us who can bear arms, we will sally out into the midst of you and fight on till we fall. So I think Jerusalem shall cost you dear.”
The Sultan stared at him and stroked his beard.
“Eighty thousand lives,” he muttered; “eighty thousand lives, besides those of my soldiers whom you will slay. A great slaughter—and the holy city destroyed forever. Oh! it was of such a massacre as this that once I dreamed.”
Then Saladin sat still and thought a while, his head bowed upon his breast.
Chapter XXIII.
Saint Rosamund
From the day when he saw Saladin Godwin began to grow strong again, and as his health came back, so he fell to thinking. Rosamund was lost to him and Masouda was dead, and at times he wished that he were dead also. What more had he to do with his life, which had been so full of sorrow, struggle and bloodshed? Go back to England to live there upon his lands, and wait until old age and death overtook him? The prospect would have pleased many, but it did not please Godwin, who felt that his days were not given to him for this purpose, and that while he lived he must also labour.
As he sat thinking thus, and was very unhappy, the aged bishop Egbert, who had nursed him so well, entered his tent, and, noting his face, asked:
“What ails you, my son?”
“Would you wish to hear?” said Godwin.
“Am I not your confessor, with a right to hear?” answered the gentle old man. “Show me your trouble.”