ome alone, but were each accompanied by presents
worthy of the service you rendered. But as to the vows?"

"As to the vows, I feel as I said just now, that I would not free myself
of them if I could, for, being bound by them, I can the more easily and
pleasantly enjoy my dream. Besides, what should I do if I left the Order
without home, country, or means, and with naught to do but to sell my
sword to some warlike monarch? Besides, Caretto, I love the Order,
and deem it the highest privilege to fight against the Moslems, and to
uphold the banner of the Cross."

"As to that, you could, like De Monteuil and many other knights here,
always come out to aid the Order in time of need. As to the vows, I am
not foolish enough to suppose that you would ask to be relieved from
them, until you had assured yourself that Claudia was also desirous that
you should be free."

"It is absurd," Gervaise said, almost impatiently. "Do not let us talk
any more about it, Caretto, or it will end by turning my head and making
me presumptuous enough to imagine that the Lady Claudia, who only saw
me for three or four days, and that while she was still but a girl, has
been thinking of me seriously since."

"I do not know Claudia's thoughts," Caretto remarked drily, "but I
do know that last year she refused to listen to at least a score of
excellent offers for her hand, including one from a son of the doge
himself, and that without any reasonable cause assigned by her, to the
great wonderment of all, seeing that she does not appear to have any
leaning whatever towards a life in a nunnery. At any rate, if at some
future time you should pluck up heart of grace to tell her you love her,
and she refuses you, you will at least have the consolation of knowing
that you are not the only one, by a long way, whose suit has been
rejected. And now as to our affairs here. Methinks that tomorrow that
battery will open fire upon us. It seems completed."

"Yes, I think they are nearly ready," Gervaise said, turning his mind
resolutely from the subject they had been discussing. "From the palace
wall I saw, before I came down here, large numbers of men rolling huge
stones down towards the church. Our guns were firing steadily; but could
they load them ten times as fast as they do, they would hardly be able
to stop the work, so numerous are those engaged upon it."

"Yes we shall soon learn something of the quality of their artillery.
The tower is strong enough t