rred. If so, you are in luck, for the servitors have a vastly
better time of it than the galley slaves, and the English auberge has
the best reputation in that respect. Come along with me."

The English auberge was one of the most handsome of the buildings
standing in the great street of the Knights. Its architecture was Gothic
in its character, and, although the langue was one of the smallest of
those represented at Rhodes, it vied with any of them in the splendour
of its appointments. Sir John Boswell was standing in the interior
courtyard.

"Wait here for a few minutes," he said to the overseer. "The bailiff
will himself question the slave as to his accomplishments; but I fancy
he will not be considered of sufficient age for the post that is vacant.
However, if this should not be so, I shall no doubt find a post to fit
him ere long, for he seems a smart young fellow, and, what is better, a
willing one, and bears himself well under his misfortunes."

Then he motioned to Gervaise to follow him to the bailiff's apartments.

"Well, Sir Gervaise," Sir John Kendall exclaimed, as the door closed
behind him, "have you found aught to justify this cruel penance you have
undertaken?"

"As to the penance, Sir John, it has been nothing unsupportable. The
exercise is hard enough, but none too hard for one in good health and
strength, and, save for the filth of the chamber in which we are shut
up at night, and the foul state of the rushes on which we lie, I
should have naught to complain of. No, I have as yet heard nothing of a
surety--and yet enough to show me that my suspicions were justified, and
that there is a plot of some sort on foot," and he related to the two
knights the conversation he had had with the galley slave.

"By St. George!" the bailiff said, "you have indeed been justified in
your surmises, and I am glad that I attached sufficient importance to
your suspicions to let you undertake this strange enterprise. What think
you, Sir John Boswell?"

"I think with you, that Sir Gervaise has fully justified his insistence
in this matter, which I own I considered to be hare brained folly. What
is to be done next, Sir Gervaise?"

"That is what I have been turning over in my mind. You see, I may have
little warning of what is going to take place. I may not hear of it
until we are locked up for the night and the affair is on the point of
taking place, and it will, of course, be most needful that I shall be
able to com