“It is well, Claudia,” he said, laughing, “that you did not see me at the time I was rescued, for I was such a scarecrow that you would never have been able to regard me with due and proper respect afterwards.  I was so thin that my bones almost came through my skin.”

“You are thin enough now, cousin,” the girl said.

“I have gained so much weight during the last ten days that I begin to fear that I shall, ere long, get too fat to buckle on my armour.  But, bad as the thinness was, it was nothing to the dirt.  Moreover, I was coming near to losing my voice.  There was nothing for us to talk about in our misery, and often days passed without a word being exchanged between Da Vinci, Forzi, and myself.  Do you know I felt almost more thankful for the bath and perfumes than I did for my liberty.  I was able at once to enjoy the comfort of the one, while it was some time before I could really assure myself that my slavery was over, and that I was a free man again.”

“And now, Sir Gervaise,” the countess said, when the meal was over, “it is your turn.  Claudia is longing to hear your story, and to know how you came to be in command of a galley.”

“And I am almost as anxious,” Caretto said.  “I did not like to ask the question on board the galley, and have been looking forward to learning it when I got to Rhodes.  I did, indeed, ask the two knights who accompanied me on my mission here, but they would only tell me that every one knew you had performed some very great service to the Order, and that it concerned some intended rising among the slaves, the details being known to only a few, who had been, they understood, told that it was not to be repeated.”

“It was a very simple matter,” Gervaise said, “and although the grand master and council were pleased to take a very favourable view of it, it was, in fact, a question of luck, just as was the surprise of the corsairs.  There is really no secret about it —­ at least, except in Rhodes:  there it was thought best not to speak of it, because the fact that the attempt among the slaves was almost successful, might, if generally known, encourage others to try to escape, and perhaps with greater success.  I told you last night, Countess, that I had only once before in the last six or seven years spoken to a woman, and it was on that occasion that the adventure, so far as I was concerned, had its commencement.”

He then, beginning at his visit with Ralph Harcourt to the Greek merchant and his family on the roof of the house, recounted the suspicions he had entertained, the manner in which they were confirmed, and the method by which he had discovered the plot for the rising.  He was interrupted several times when he attempted to abbreviate the story, or to omit some of the details, and there were exclamations of surprise at his proposal to personate a Turkish prisoner, and to share the lot of the slaves in their prison, and on the benches of the galley.