With her dagger blade she cut its silk, opened it, and read aloud, always in the same quiet voice, translating as she read:-- "In the name of Allah the One, the All-merciful, to my niece, aforetime the princess of Baalbec, Rosamund D'Arcy by name, now a fugitive hidden in a convent of the Franks in the city el-Kuds Esh-sherif, the holy city of Jerusalem: "Niece,--All my promises to you I have performed, and more, since for your sake I spared the lives of your cousins, the twin knights.

But you have repaid me with ingratitude and trickery, after the manner of those of your false and accursed faith, and have fled from me.

I promised you also, again and yet again, that if you attempted this thing, death should be your portion.

No longer, therefore, are you the princess of Baalbec, but only an escaped Christian slave, and as such doomed to die whenever my sword reaches you.
"Of my vision concerning you, which caused me to bring you to the East from England, you know well.

Repeat it in your heart before you answer.