Part 52 (1/2)

He must awaken her; there was no choice. Yes, it was she, asleep, and she still wore the royal robes of Rosamund, and a clasp of Rosamund's still glittered on her breast.

How sound Masouda slept! Would she never wake? He knelt down beside her and put out his hand to lift the long hair that hid her face.

Now it touched her, and lo! the head fell over.

Then, with horror in his heart, G.o.dwin held down the lamp and looked. Oh! those robes were red, and those lips were ashen. It was Masouda, whose spirit had pa.s.sed him in the desert; Masouda, slain by the headsman's sword! This was the evil jest that had been played upon him, and thus--thus they met again.

G.o.dwin rose to his feet and stood over her still shape as a man stands in a dream, while words broke from his lips and a fountain in his heart was unsealed.

”Masouda,” he whispered, ”I know now that I love you and you only, henceforth and forever, O woman with a royal heart. Wait for me, Masouda, wherever you may dwell.”

While the whispered words left his lips, it seemed to G.o.dwin that once more, as when he rode with Wulf from Ascalon, the strange wind blew about his brow, bringing with it the presence of Masouda, and that once more the unearthly peace sank into his soul.

Then all was past and over, and he turned to see the old imaum standing at his side.

”Did I not tell you that you would find her sleeping?” he said, with his bitter, chuckling laugh. ”Call on her, Sir Knight; call on her! Love, they say, can bridge great gulfs--even that between severed neck and bosom.”

With the silver lamp in his hand G.o.dwin smote, and the man went down like a felled ox, leaving him once more in silence and in darkness.

For a moment G.o.dwin stood thus, till his brain was filled with fire, and he too fell--fell across the corpse of Masouda, and there lay still.

Chapter Twenty-two: At Jerusalem

G.o.dwin knew that he lay sick, but save that Masouda seemed to tend him in his sickness he knew no more, for all the past had gone from him. There she was always, clad in a white robe, and looking at him with eyes full of ineffable calm and love, and he noted that round her neck ran a thin, red line, and wondered how it came there.

He knew also that he travelled while he was ill, for at dawn he would hear the camp break up with a mighty noise, and feel his litter lifted by slaves who bore him along for hours across the burning sand, till at length the evening came, and with a humming sound, like the sound of hiving bees, the great army set its bivouac. Then came the night and the pale moon floating like a boat upon the azure sea above, and everywhere the bright, eternal stars, to which went up the constant cry of ”Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! G.o.d is the greatest, there is none but He.”

”It is a false G.o.d,” he would say. ”Tell them to cry upon the Saviour of the World.”

Then the voice of Masouda would seem to answer:

”Judge not. No G.o.d whom men wors.h.i.+p with a pure and single heart is wholly false. Many be the ladders that lead to heaven. Judge not, you Christian knight.”

At length that journey was done, and there arose new noises as of the roar of battle. Orders were given and men marched out in thousands; then rose that roar, and they marched back again, mourning their dead.

At last came a day when, opening his eyes, G.o.dwin turned to rest them on Masouda, and lo! she was gone, and in her accustomed place there sat a man whom he knew well--Egbert, once bishop of Nazareth, who gave him to drink of sherbet cooled with snow. Yes, the Woman had departed and the Priest was there.

”Where am I?” he asked.

”Outside the walls of Jerusalem, my son, a prisoner in the camp of Saladin,” was the answer.

”And where is Masouda, who has sat by me all these days?”

”In heaven, as I trust,” came the gentle answer, ”for she was a brave lady. It is I who have sat by you.”

”Nay,” said G.o.dwin obstinately, ”it was Masouda.”

”If so,” answered the bishop again, ”it was her spirit, for I shrove her and have prayed over her open grave--her spirit, which came to visit you from heaven, and has gone back to heaven now that you are of the earth again.”

Then G.o.dwin remembered the truth, and groaning, fell asleep.

Afterwards, as he grew stronger, Egbert told him all the story.