Do you understand ?" They nodded, and Masouda continued: "Lastly--though you may think that this seems much to ask--trust me always, even if I seem to play you false, who for your sakes," and she sighed, "have broken oaths and spoken words for which the punishment is to die by torment.

Nay, thank me not, for I do only what I must who am a slave--a slave." "A slave to whom ?" asked Godwin, staring at her.
"To the Lord of all the Mountains," she answered, with a smile that was sweet yet very sad; and without another word spurred on her horse.
"What does she mean," asked Godwin of Wulf, when she was out of hearing, "seeing that if she speaks truth, for our sakes, in warning us against him, Masouda is breaking her fealty to this lord ?" "I do not know, brother, and I do not seek to know.

All her talk may be a part of a plot to blind us, or it may not.

Let well alone and trust in fortune, say I." "A good counsel," answered Godwin, and they rode forward in silence.
They crossed the plain, and towards evening came to the wall of the outer city, halting in front of its great gateway.

Here, as at the first castle, a band of solemn-looking mounted men came out to meet them, and, having spoken a few words with Masouda, led them over the drawbridge that spanned the first rock-cut moat, and through triple gates of iron into the city.