unwilling that, so long as he carried it, another should possess a similar one from me. I am sure that Sir Gervaise will have felt that this was the meaning of my words; I wished him to see that it was not a favour lightly given by a girl who might, a few weeks hence, bestow a similar one upon another, but was a gage seriously given of the honour in which I held him.'
'Very well said, Claudia,' Caretto broke in, before the countess could reply. 'I warrant me the young knight will not misunderstand your gift, and that he will prize it highly and carry it nobly. He is not one of those who will boast of a favour and display it all times, and, except perhaps to his friend Sir Ralph Harcourt, I will wager he never tells a soul who was its donor.'
When Claudia shortly afterwards left the room, he said to the countess, 'Excuse me for breaking in, Agatha, but I felt that it was much better to agree with her, and not to make overmuch of the matter; she is just of an age to make some one a hero, and she could hardly have chosen a better subject for her worship. In the first place, he is a knight of St. John; in the second, he is going away in a few days, perhaps tomorrow, and may never cross her path again. The thought of him will prevent her fancy from straying for a time, and keep her heart whole until you decide on a suitor for her hand.'
'Nevertheless, I would rather that it had not been so. Claudia is not given to change, and this may last long enough to cause trouble when I bring forward the suitor you speak of.'
'Well, in any case it might be worse,' Caretto said philosophically. And then, with a smile in answer to her look of inquiry, 'Knights of the Order have, ere now, obtained release from their vows.'
'Fabricius!' the countess exclaimed, in a shocked voice.
'Yes, I know, Agatha, that the child is one of the richest heiresses in Italy, but for that very reason it needs not that her husband should have wide possessions. In all other respects you could wish for no better. He will assuredly be a famous knight; he is the sort of man to make her perfectly happy; and, lastly, you know I cannot forget that I owe my liberation from slavery to him. At any rate, Agatha, as I said before, he may never cross her path again, and you may, a year or two hence, find her perfectly amenable to your wishes.'
CHAPTER XVII
CAPTURED
Upon the following day the doge requested Gervaise to accompany him to a meeting of the council. Upon entering the grand hall he found not only the members of the council assembled in their robes of office, but a large gathering of the nobles and principal citizens of Genoa, together with the knights of the galley whom, under Ralph Harcourt's orders, Gervaise found, to his surprise, drawn up in order across the Hall. Here, in the name of the Republic, Battista Fragoso announced to him that, by the unanimous decision of the council, he had been elected a noble of Genoa; an honour, he added, on only one or two previous occasions in the history of the Republic bestowed upon any but of princely rank, but which he had nobly earned by the great service he had rendered to the State. His name was then inscribed in the book containing the names and titles of the nobles of Genoa. Next, Battista Fragoso presented him with a superb suit of Milanese armour, as his own personal gift, and then with a casket of very valuable jewels, as the gift of the city of Genoa. Each presentation was accompanied by the plaudits of the assembly, and by the no less warm acclamations of the knights. Ralph was then called forward, and presented with a suit of armour but little inferior to that given to Gervaise, and each knight received a heavy gold chain of the finest workmanship of Genoa.
Two days later the preparations for departure were complete, and a sufficient number of men were engaged to man the prizes. This charge, also, Genoa took upon itself, and put on board much stronger crews than Gervaise deemed necessary for the navigation of the ships. The weather was fine and the wind favourable, and a quick passage was made to Rhodes. When the harbour was in sight, the ships were ordered to proceed in single file, the galley leading the way with a huge banner of the Order floating from her stern, and smaller flags on staffs at each side. It was not until they passed by the two forts guarding the entrance that the flags fluttering at the mastheads of the prizes afforded to those on shore an intimation of the event that had taken place, and even then none supposed that this fleet of prizes had been taken by the one galley that headed them.
As the Santa Barbara slowly rowed up the harbour, the State barge of the grand master put off to meet it, and D'Aubusson, with a party of knights, soon stepped on board.
'Welcome back, Sir Gervaise! although I little expected to see you return so soon. What is the meaning of this procession that follows you? By their rig and appearance they are Moors, but how they come to be thus sailing in your wake is a mystery to us all.'
'They are Moors, your Excellency; they form part of an expedition fitted out by the corsairs of Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, and other piratical strongholds, for the purpose of destroying the commerce and ravaging the coasts of Western Italy. Fortunately, we fell in with a ship that had been plundered by three of them on their way north, and learned from the dying captain, who was the only one of her crew left with life on board, the direction they were taking, and something of the nature of the expedition. We pursued the three galleys, came up with them, had the good fortune to capture them, and then had the delight of finding among their rowers the noble knights, Fabricius Caretto, Giacomo Da Vinci, and Pietro Forzi.'
The grand master, and the knights with him, uttered an exclamation of joy, and, as the three knights named stepped forward, embraced them with the liveliest pleasure.
'My dear Caretto,' the grand master exclaimed, 'it is almost a resurrection, for we have all long mourned you as dead; and your return to us at the present time is indeed fortunate; for upon whose judgment and aid could I better rely than those of my old comrade in arms?' Then, turning to Gervaise, he went on: 'It was a daring and brilliant exploit indeed, Sir Gervaise, and in due time honour shall be paid to you and your brave companions, to whom and to you I now tender the thanks of the Order. But tell me the rest briefly, for I would fain hear from these noble knights and old friends the story of what has befallen them.'
'My tale is a very brief one, your Highness. The Cavalier Caretto sailed at once in a swift craft from the south of Sardinia, to carry warnings to the cities on the coast of Italy of the danger that threatened them, and in order that some war galleys might be despatched by Genoa to meet the corsair fleet. During his absence we discovered the little inlet in which the pirates lay hidden, waiting doubtless the arrival of the three ships we had captured, to commence operations. On the return of the knight with the news that it would be at least a fortnight before Genoa could fit out any galleys, and fearing that the pirates might at any moment put to sea, we procured some small Sardinian craft, and fitted them as fire ships; with the captives we had rescued, and some Sard fishermen, we manned the three prizes, distributing the knights between them, and at night launched the fire ships against the corsairs, whose ships were crowded together. Eleven of them were burnt; six we captured as they endeavoured to make their way out, and took possession of four others whose crews had run them ashore and deserted them. None escaped.'
Exclamations of astonishment and almost of incredulity broke from the knights.
'And is it possible, Sir Gervaise, that these thirteen vessels that follow you are all prizes captured by your galley alone?'
'It is, as I have the honour to tell your Highness. But their capture, except in the case of the first three, was due almost solely to good fortune and to the position in which we found them, almost incapable of defence.'
'What think you, knights and comrades?' the grand master said to his companions. 'There were some of you who deemed it rash to entrust a galley to so young a commander and so youthful a crew. What say you now? Never in the annals of the Order has such a sight been witnessed as that of thirteen prizes being brought in by a single galley, to say naught of eleven others destroyed. Caretto, you and your comrades must have had some share in this marvellous victory.'
'By no means,' the Italian replied; 'beyond having the honour of aiding to carry out the orders of Sir Gervaise Tresham, the commander of the galley. The plan was wholly of his own devising, its execution solely due to his arrangement of the details, and that without the slightest suggestion on the part of myself or my comrades. I will presently narrate to you the whole story; it will come better from my lips than from those of Sir Gervaise, whose disposition is to wholly underestimate the merit of the action he has performed. But I must also bear testimony, not only to the bravery displayed by Sir Gervaise, Sir Ralph Harcourt, his lieutenant, and every one of the knights his crew, but to the admirable discipline, order, and good fellowship on board the galley, which would have done credit to the most experienced commander and to the most veteran knights of the Order.'
The grand master paused a moment, and then said in a loud voice, 'Sir Gervaise Tresham, Sir Ralph Harcourt, and knights of the seven langues of the Order — As yet I can hardly appreciate the full extent of the service that
