was a joy to see
how much comfort and delight this was to him. And when he had swallowed a
good cup of strong Malvoisie, he could sit up, and enquired if the Baron
von Im Hoff were minded to satisfy the Sultan's over-great demand. And to
this I replied, to give him easement, that we had good reason to hope so.
And was his mind now clear enough to enable him to remember how great a
sum was demanded for ransom?

He smiled craftily, and said that even as a dead man he could scarce have
forgotten that, by reason that he had muttered the words to himself on
his way oftener than any old monk mumbles his Paternoster. And when Uncle
Conrad laughed and bid him jestingly repeat it, he said, like a school
boy who is sure of his task: "For Master Herdegen Schopper, slave of the
said unbeliever Abou Sef--[Father of the scimitar]--in the armory of
Sultan Burs Bey in the Castle of Cairo, a ransom is demanded of
twenty-four thousand Venice sequins. George--Christina! Death and fire on
the head of the misbelieving wretch!"

When we heard this we all believed that he had of a surety been wrong as
to the sum or the coin, likewise we thought his last strange words were
due to a wandering mind; howbeit, we were soon to learn that verily his
tidings were the truth. He forthwith went on to say with some pains that
his master had made him to use a means by which he might remember the
number from all others in case, by ill-hap, the letter should be lost.
And on this wise he gave us to know for certain that the vast sum
demanded was not an error on his part. It was to this end that he had
stamped on his memory the names of Saint George and Saint Christina,
whose days in the calendar are on the 24th of April and the 24th of July,
and the number of thousands named for the ransom was likewise four and
twenty. Also Herdegen had bid him think of twice the twelve apostles, and
of the twenty-four hours from midnight till midnight again. It would seem
beyond belief to most folks, he said, yet it was indeed twenty-four
thousand, and not hundred, sequins which that devilish Sultan has asked,
as indeed we must know from the letter. Presently, when he had rested a
while, we made him tell us more, and we learned that the Sultan had been
minded to set Herdegen free without price, and he would have had him led
forthwith to the imprisoned King Janus of Cyprus, to whom he thought he
might thus do a pleasure, but that Ursula Tetzel, who was standing by
with her