Lead them away." For a moment they clung together, then emirs took Wulf to the right and Rosamund to the left, and she went with a pale face and high head to meet her executioner, wondering if she would see Godwin ere she died.

They led her to a chamber where women waited but no swordsman that she could see, and shut the door upon her.
"Perchance I am to be strangled by these women," thought Rosamund, as they came towards her, "so that the blood royal may not be shed." Yet it was not so, for with gentle hands, but in silence, they unrobed her, and washed her with scented waters and braided her hair, twisting it up with pearls and gems.

Then they clad her in fine linen, and put over it gorgeous, broidered garments, and a royal mantle of purple, and her own jewels which she had worn in bygone days, and with them others still more splendid, and threw about her head a gauzy veil worked with golden stars.

It was just such a veil as Wulf's gift which she had worn on the night when Hassan dragged her from her home at Steeple.

She noted it and smiled at the sad omen, then said: "Ladies, why should I mock my doom with these bright garments ?" "It is the Sultan's will," they answered; "nor shall you rest to-night less happily because of them." Now all was ready, and the door opened and she stepped through it, a radiant thing, glittering in the lamplight.