If her spirit is high enough, Jerusalem may yet be saved.

If it be baser than I thought, as well may chance, then assuredly with her it is doomed.

I have no more to say, but my envoys shall ride with you bearing a letter, which with their own hands they must present to my niece, the princess of Baalbec.
Then she can return with them to me, or she can bide where she is, when I shall know that I saw but a lying vision of peace and mercy flowing from her hands, and will press on this war to its bloody end." Within an hour Balian rode to the city under safe conduct, taking with him the envoys of Saladin and the letter, which they were charged to deliver to Rosamund.
It was night, and in their lamp-lit chapel the Virgins of the Holy Cross upon bended knees chanted the slow and solemn Miserere.

From their hearts they sang, to whom death and dishonour were so near, praying their Lord and the merciful Mother of God to have pity, and to spare them and the inhabitants of the hallowed town where He had dwelt and suffered, and to lead them safe through the shadow of a fate as awful as His own.

They knew that the end was near, that the walls were tottering to their fall, that the defenders were exhausted, and that soon the wild soldiers of Saladin would be surging through the narrow streets.
Then would come the sack and the slaughter, either by the sword of the Saracens, or, perchance, if these found time and they were not forgotten, more mercifully at the hands of Christian men, who thus would save them from the worst.
Their dirge ended, the abbess rose and addressed them.