“Ay, but who would get it?  You know how it was with one that Ibrahim took two years ago.  First there were months of delay, then, when the ransom was settled, the pasha took four-fifths of it for himself, and Ibrahim got far less than he would have done had he sold him as a slave.  The pashas here, and the sultans of the Moors, are all alike; if they once meddle in an affair they take all the profit, and think they do well by giving you a tithe of it.  There are plenty of wealthy Moors who are ready to pay well for a Christian slave, especially when he is a good looking young fellow such as this.  He will fetch as much as all those eight sailors below.  They are only worth their labour, while this youngster will command a fancy price.  I know a dozen rich Moors in Tripoli or Tunis who would be glad to have him; and we agreed that we would run down to the African coast for awhile, for that galley has been altogether too busy of late for our comfort, and will be all the more active after this little affair; besides, people in these islands have got so scared that one can’t get within ten miles of any of them now without seeing their signal smokes rising on the hills, and finding, when they land, the villages deserted and stripped of everything worth carrying away.”

This news was a disappointment to Gervaise.  He had calculated that he would be sold at one of the Levant ports, and had thought that with his knowledge of Turkish he should have no great difficulty in escaping from any master into whose hands he might fall, and taking his chance of either seizing a fishing boat, or of making his way in a trading ship to some district where the population was a mixed one, and where trade was winked at between the merchants there, and those at some of the Greek towns.  To escape from Tunis or Tripoli would be far more difficult; there, too, he would be beyond the reach of the good offices of Suleiman Ali, who would, he was sure, have done all in his power to bring about his release.  Of one thing he was determined:  he would not return to Rhodes without making every possible effort to recover Claudia’s gage, as he considered it absolutely incumbent on him as a knight to guard, as something sacred, a gift so bestowed.  The fancy of the corsair to retain the jewel as a charm he regarded as a piece of the greatest good fortune.  Had it been thrown among the common spoil, he would never have known to which of the crew it had fallen at the division, still less have traced what became of it afterwards; whereas now, for some time, at any rate, it was likely to remain in the captain’s possession.