“This, my lord duke,” Caretto said, “is Sir Gervaise Tresham, a knight commander of our Order, and the commander of this, their galley.  He has before, as you may well believe from his appointment to so honourable a post, highly distinguished himself, but what he has before accomplished is far surpassed by the brilliant action that he has now achieved.  He has won a victory that not only reflects the highest honour upon the Order, but is an inestimable service to Italy, and has freed her from a corsair fleet that would have been a scourge to her, both at sea and to the towns and villages along the coast.  Not only has he, with the brave knights under his orders, annihilated the corsair fleet, burning eleven of their galleys, and capturing thirteen others, but he has restored to freedom no less than two hundred Christian captives, among them the cavaliers Giacomo da Vinci, Pietro Forzi, and myself.”

“In the name of the Republic, Sir Gervaise Tresham, and I may say in that of all Italy, I thank you most heartily for the splendid service that you have rendered us.  It would have seemed to me well nigh incredible that a single galley, even if commanded and manned by the most famous knights of your great Order, should have accomplished so extraordinary a feat.  Still more strange is it that it should have been performed by so young a knight, with a crew composed, as Sir Fabricius Caretto has told us, of knights chosen from among the youngest of the Order.”

“You give far more credit to us, your Highness, than we deserve,” Gervaise replied.  “Three of the ships were indeed captured in fair fight, but we caught the rest asleep and massed together as to be incapable of successful resistance, and they fell easy victims to the fire ships we launched against them.  Any credit that is due to me is shared equally by my subcommander here, Sir Ralph Harcourt, and indeed by every knight of my company.”

“This, doubtless, may be so, Sir Gervaise,” the doge said, with a slight smile, “but it is to the head that plans, rather than to the hand that strikes, that such success as you have achieved is due; and the credit of this night attack is, as the cavalier Caretto tells me, wholly yours, for until you issued your final orders it seemed to him, and to the two good knights his companions, that there was naught to do but to remain in port and watch this corsair fleet sail away to carry out its work of destruction.”

By this time they had reached the poop of the galley.  Gervaise now called forward the knights one by one, and presented them to the doge, who expressed to them all the gratitude felt by himself and the whole of the citizens of Genoa for the service they had rendered to the Republic.  This ceremony being over, the knights broke up their ranks and conversed for a few minutes with those who had come on board with the doge.  The latter then took his place in the barge with his companions, inviting Gervaise