Follow me, sirs, I pray you." Then she walked through the crowd, which, they noted, parted for her as she went, to a post where a fine mule was tied.

Loosing it, she leaped to the saddle without help, and began to ride away, looking back from time to time to see that they were following her, as, indeed, they must.
"Whither go we, I wonder," said Godwin, as they trudged through the sands of Beirut, with the hot sun striking on their heads.
"Who can tell when a strange woman leads ?" replied Wulf, with a laugh.
At last the woman on the mule turned through a doorway in a wall of unburnt brick, and they found themselves before the porch of a white, rambling house which stood in a large garden planted with mulberries, oranges and other fruit trees that were strange to them, and was situated on the borders of the city.
Here the woman dismounted and gave the mule to a Nubian who was waiting.

Then, with a quick movement she unveiled herself, and turned towards them as though to show her beauty.

Beautiful she was, of that there could be no doubt, with her graceful, swaying shape, her dark and liquid eyes, her rounded features and strangely impassive countenance.

She was young also--perhaps twenty-five, no more--and very fair-skinned for an Eastern.
"My poor house is for pilgrims and merchants, not for famous knights; yet, sirs, I welcome you to it," she said presently, scanning them out of the corners of her eyes.
"We are but squires in our own country, who make the pilgrimage," replied Godwin.