“You, Sir Godwin,” went on Masouda, “have about your neck a certain ring which you were mad enough to show to me, a stranger—a ring with writing on it which none can read save the great men that in this land are called the _daïs_s. Well, as it chances, the secret is safe with me; but be wise; say nothing of that ring and let no eye see it.” “Why not?” asked Godwin. “It is the token of our dead uncle to the Al-je-bal.” She looked round her cautiously and replied: “Because it is, or was once, the great Signet, and a day may come when it will save your lives. Doubtless when the lord who is dead thought it gone forever he caused another to be fashioned, so like that I who have had both in my hand could not tell the two apart. To him who holds that ring all gates are open; but to let it be known that you have its double means death. 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. Then they passed up a street very steep and narrow, from the roofs and windows of the houses on either side of which hundreds of people—many of whom seemed to be engaged at their evening prayer—watched them go by. At the head of this street they reached another fortified gateway, on the turrets of which, so motionless that at first they took them to be statues cut in stone, stood guards wrapped in long white robes. After parley, this also was opened to them, and again they rode through triple doors.