ding me to be married in Crete, when, as ill-luck would have
it, we had run thither and suffered shipwreck. Moreover, many a time
and in many things I observed their customs, for fear of worse, and
being asked by the chief of the ladies, her whom they call abbess, if
I wished to return thence to Cyprus, I answered that I desired nothing
so much; but she, tender of my honour, would never consent to trust me
to any person who was bound for Cyprus, till some two months agone,
when there came thither certain gentlemen of France with their ladies.
One of the latter being a kinswoman of the abbess and she hearing that
they were bound for Jerusalem, to visit the Sepulchre where He whom
they hold God was buried, after He had been slain by the Jews, she
commended me to their care and besought them to deliver me to my
father in Cyprus.

With what honour these gentlemen entreated me and how cheerfully they
received me together with their ladies, it were a long story to tell;
suffice it to say that we took ship and came, after some days, to
Baffa, where finding myself arrived and knowing none in the place, I
knew not what to say to the gentlemen, who would fain have delivered
me to my father, according to that which had been enjoined them of the
reverend lady; but God, taking pity belike on my affliction, brought
me Antigonus upon the beach what time we disembarked at Baffa, whom I
straightway hailed and in our tongue, so as not to be understood of
the gentlemen and their ladies, bade him receive me as a daughter. He
promptly apprehended me and receiving me with a great show of joy,
entertained the gentlemen and their ladies with such honour as his
poverty permitted and carried me to the King of Cyprus, who received
me with such hospitality and hath sent me back to you [with such
courtesy] as might never be told of me. If aught remain to be said,
let Antigonus, who hath ofttimes heard from me these adventures,
recount it.'

Accordingly Antigonus, turning to the Soldan, said, 'My lord, even as
she hath many a time told me and as the gentlemen and ladies, with
whom she came, said to me, so hath she recounted unto you. Only one
part hath she forborne to tell you, the which methinketh she left
unsaid for that it beseemeth her not to tell it, to wit, how much the
gentlemen and ladies, with whom she came, said of the chaste and
modest life which she led with the religious ladies and of her virtue
and commendable manners and the tears a