ain from his neck.

"You are a stout fellow," he said, laughing, "and will make a fine
slave. What have you got here that you are ready to risk your life
for?" He looked at the little chain and its pendant with an air of
disappointment. "'Tis worth but little," he said, showing it to his
mate. "I would not give five ducats for it in the market. It must be a
charm, or a knight would never carry it about with him and prize it so
highly. It may be to things like this the Christians owe their luck."

"It has not brought him luck this time," the mate observed with a laugh.

"Even a charm cannot always bring good luck, but at any rate I will try
it;" and he put it round his neck just as Gervaise had worn it. The
latter was now unbound, and permitted to move about the deck. The
strength he had shown in the struggle on shore, and the manner in which
he had hurled, bound as he was, two of their comrades to the deck, had
won for him the respect of his captors, and he was therefore allowed
privileges not granted to the seamen of the vessel that had had the ill
fortune to be cast on shore so close to the spot where the corsair
was hiding. These had been seized, driven to the ship, and having been
stripped of the greater portion of their clothes, shut down in the hold.

Although angry that but one out of the four who landed had been
captured, the captain was in a good humour at having tricked his
redoubtable foes, and was disposed to treat Gervaise with more
consideration than was generally given to captives. The latter had not
spoken a word of Turkish from the time he was captured, and had shaken
his head when first addressed in that language. No suspicion was
therefore entertained that he had any knowledge of it, and the Turks
conversed freely before him.

"Where think you we had better sell him?" the mate asked the captain,
when Gervaise was leaning against the bulwark watching the land, a short
quarter of a mile away. "He ought to fetch a good ransom."

"Ay, but who would get it? You know how it was with one that Ibrahim
took two years ago. First there were months of delay, then, when the
ransom was settled, the pasha took four-fifths of it for himself, and
Ibrahim got far less than he would have done had he sold him as a slave.
The pashas here, and the sultans of the Moors, are all alike; if they
once meddle in an affair they take all the profit, and think they do
well by giving you a tithe of it. There are plenty of wealt