Now what was this vision? That through Rosamund much slaughter should be spared. Well, if Jerusalem were saved, would not tens of thousands of Moslem and Christian lives be saved also? Oh! surely here was the answer, and some angel had put it into his heart, and now he prayed for strength to plant it in the heart of Saladin, for strength and opportunity. This very day Godwin found the opportunity. As he lay dozing in his tent that evening, being still too weak to rise, a shadow fell upon him, and opening his eyes he saw the Sultan himself standing alone by his bedside. Now he strove to rise to salute him, but in a kind voice Saladin bade him lie still, and seating himself, began to talk. “Sir Godwin,” he said, “I am come to ask your pardon. When I sent you to visit that dead woman, who had suffered justly for her crime, I did an act unworthy of a king. But my heart was bitter against her and you, and the imaum, he whom you smote, put into my mind the trick that cost him his eye and almost cost a worn-out and sorrowful man his life. I have spoken.” “I thank you, sire, who were always noble,” answered Godwin. “You say so. Yet I have done things to you and yours that you can scarcely hold as noble,” said Saladin. “I stole your cousin from her home, as her mother had been stolen from mine, paying back ill with ill, which is against the law, and in his own hall my servants slew her father and your uncle, who was once my friend. Well, these things I did because a fate drove me on—the fate of a dream, the fate of a dream. Say, Sir Godwin, is that story which they tell in the camps true, that a vision came to you before the battle of Hattin, and that you warned the leaders of the Franks not to advance against me?” “Yes, it is true,” answered Godwin, and he told the vision, and of how he had sworn to it on the Rood. “And what did they say to you?” “They laughed at me, and hinted that I was a sorcerer, or a traitor in your pay, or both.” “Blind fools, who would not hear the truth when it was sent to them by the pure mouth of a prophet,” muttered Saladin. “Well, they paid the price, and I and my faith are the gainers. Do you wonder, then, Sir Godwin, that I also believe my vision which came to me thrice in the night season, bringing with it the picture of the very face of my niece, the princess of Baalbec?” “I do not wonder,” answered Godwin. “Do you wonder also that I was mad with rage when I learned that at last yonder brave dead woman had outwitted me and all my spies and guards, and this after I had spared your lives? Do you wonder that I am still so wroth, believing as I do that a great occasion has been taken from me?” “I do not wonder. But, Sultan, I who have seen a vision speak to you who also have seen a vision—a prophet to a prophet. And I tell you that the occasion has not been taken—it has been brought, yes, to your very door, and that all these things have happened that it might thus be brought.”