hy Moors who
are ready to pay well for a Christian slave, especially when he is a
good looking young fellow such as this. He will fetch as much as all
those eight sailors below. They are only worth their labour, while
this youngster will command a fancy price. I know a dozen rich Moors in
Tripoli or Tunis who would be glad to have him; and we agreed that we
would run down to the African coast for awhile, for that galley has been
altogether too busy of late for our comfort, and will be all the more
active after this little affair; besides, people in these islands have
got so scared that one can't get within ten miles of any of them now
without seeing their signal smokes rising on the hills, and finding,
when they land, the villages deserted and stripped of everything worth
carrying away."

This news was a disappointment to Gervaise. He had calculated that he
would be sold at one of the Levant ports, and had thought that with his
knowledge of Turkish he should have no great difficulty in escaping
from any master into whose hands he might fall, and taking his chance of
either seizing a fishing boat, or of making his way in a trading ship to
some district where the population was a mixed one, and where trade was
winked at between the merchants there, and those at some of the Greek
towns. To escape from Tunis or Tripoli would be far more difficult;
there, too, he would be beyond the reach of the good offices of Suleiman
Ali, who would, he was sure, have done all in his power to bring about
his release. Of one thing he was determined: he would not return to
Rhodes without making every possible effort to recover Claudia's gage,
as he considered it absolutely incumbent on him as a knight to guard, as
something sacred, a gift so bestowed. The fancy of the corsair to
retain the jewel as a charm he regarded as a piece of the greatest good
fortune. Had it been thrown among the common spoil, he would never have
known to which of the crew it had fallen at the division, still less
have traced what became of it afterwards; whereas now, for some time, at
any rate, it was likely to remain in the captain's possession.

Had it not been for that, he would have attempted to escape at the first
opportunity, and such an opportunity could not fail to present itself
ere long, for he had but to manage to possess himself of Moslem garments
to be able to move about unquestioned in any Turkish town. When it
became dark he was shut up in the hold, w