ut I did not doubt that I
could get away from the town whenever I chose, although it was not
clear how I should proceed afterwards. It was for this opportunity I
was waiting, and I felt sure that, with my knowledge of the language, it
would come sooner or later. In the next place, my captors had fixed
an exorbitant sum for my ransom, and I did not wish to impose upon the
generosity of Suleiman. There was another reason--a private one."

"You don't mean to say that you had fallen in love with a Moorish
damsel, Sir Gervaise?" Caretto laughed.

"For shame, Cavalier! As if a Christian knight would care for a Moslem
maiden, even were she as fair as the houris of their creed!"

"Christian knights have done so before now," Caretto laughed, greatly
amused at the young knight's indignation, "and doubtless will do so
again. Well, I suppose I must not ask what the private matter was,
though it must have been something grave indeed to lead you, a slave,
to reject the offer of freedom. I know that when I was rowing in their
galleys, no matter of private business that I can conceive would have
stood in my way for a single moment, had a chance of freedom presented
itself."

"It was a matter of honour," Gervaise said gravely, "and one of which I
should speak to no one else; but as you were present at the time, there
can, I think, be no harm in doing so. At the time that I was captured, I
was stripped of everything that I had upon me, and, of course, with the
rest, of the gage which the Lady Claudia had given me, and which hung
round my neck where she had placed it. It was taken possession of by the
captain of the pirates, who, seeing that it bore no Christian emblem,
looked upon it as a sort of amulet. I understood what he was saying,
but, as I was desirous that my knowledge of Turkish should not be
suspected, I said nothing. I was very glad that he so regarded it, for
had he taken it to be an ordinary trinket, he might have parted with it,
and I should never have been able to obtain a clue as to the person to
whom he sold it. As it was, he put it round his neck, with the remark
that it might bring him better luck than had befallen me. He told me
jeeringly months afterwards that it had done so, and that he would never
part with it. Given me as it was, I felt that my honour was concerned in
its recovery, and that, should I ever meet Lady Claudia again, I should
feel disgraced indeed, if, when she asked whether I still bore her gage,