The dungeon of al Mamun was a squat brick square, with a flat clay roof and tiny slit windows, erected at a little distance from the main building of his establishment, between the wharf and the barracks that housed his common soldiery. In its stinking, superheated confines now lay a score of Crusaders, captured a month before while on detached patrol duty from Richard's forces; twenty-seven Bedouins, the remains of Godwin's army; fourteen assorted Saracens, in jail for one offense or another against Mufaddal; El Sareuk and Godwin himself. There was barely enough floor space for each man of the sixty-three to stand upright, or to sit, if he didn't mind jostling his neighbors. Godwin was standing by a window looking out at the dock from which the dark plague ship, a tall obscene blot against the descending moon, had a quarter of an hour before set sail. El Sareuk was beside him, making suggestions. "How if we all formed a kind of wedge, Godwin, and began battering the door with the point? A few would be crushed, certainly, but the door might be torn down." "Well, we'll try it, old wolf, if nothing better occurs to us." Godwin leaned in the little embrasure, tugging fretfully at his blond beard. "If I had my sword...!" He clanked his leg chains with anger; they had chained him and El Sareuk and a couple of the brawnier Crusaders. Damn all, he thought to himself. The ship is gone, what does it matter if we get out or not? Except to save Ramizail, of course. If I could remember what I did with that bloody ring! Mihrjan could sink that ship like an oaken chip. And then, as the moon touched the far crest of the sea, the door opened and a Mameluke thrust in his head. "Godwin! Godwin's wanted!" The prisoners all burst into raucous speech, invitations and curses. "Come and get him!" "Do venture within, jailer, and let us show thee something pretty!" "Enter, thou fuzz-bearded son of a dung heap, and fetch him!" Godwin pushed his way to the door. The Mameluke retreated behind it. "Step out, Godwin," he said, nervously prodding the Englishman with his sword. "Mufaddal wants you." Godwin grinned evilly, and stepped forth. The Mameluke, who Godwin now saw had a file of soldiers at his back, slammed the door on the execrations of the prisoners. "Come along," he growled. El Sareuk, watching from a window, saw Godwin disappear with a firm step into the waning night, clinking his leg chains jauntily. For long he did not come back. The old Arab harangued the sixty-one men who were left, urging that they forget their feuds and crusades and band together against their captor; and they agreed whole-heartedly with him, and fell to making plans for escape and vengeance. Not a man of them but hated Mufaddal, and most of all for his loathsome scheme of the plague ship.