“Fortune was against them,” Gervaise said.  “Three ships on their way up were captured by a galley of our Order, and her commander having obtained news of the whereabouts of the spot where the corsairs were to rendezvous, found them all lying together in a small inlet, and launched against them a number of fishing boats fitted out as fire ships.  The corsairs, packed closely together, were unable to avoid them, and, as I told you, eleven of their ships were burnt, four were run ashore to avoid the flames, while six, trying to make their way out, were captured by the galley, aided by the three prizes that were taken and which the knights had caused to be manned by Sards.”

“The ways of Allah the All Seeing are wonderful,” the merchant said.  “It was indeed a marvellous feat for one galley thus to destroy a great fleet.”

“It was the result of good fortune rather than skill and valour,” Gervaise said.

“Nay, nay; let praise be given where it is due.  It was a marvellous feat; and although there is good or bad fortune in every event, such a deed could not have been performed, and would not even have been thought of, save by a great commander.  Who was the knight who thus with one galley alone destroyed a strongly manned fleet, from which great things had been looked for?”

Gervaise hesitated.  “It was a young knight,” he said, “of but little standing in the Order, and whose name is entirely unknown outside its ranks.”

“By this time it must be well known,” Ben Ibyn said; “and it will soon be known throughout Christendom, and will be dreaded by every Moor.  What was it?”

Gervaise again hesitated.

“I would not have told you the story at all, Ben Ibyn, had I supposed you would have cared to inquire into the matter.  Of course, I will tell you the name if you insist upon it, but I would much rather you did not ask.”

“But why?” the merchant asked, in surprise.  “If I hear it not from you, I shall assuredly hear it ere long from others, for it will be brought by traders who are in communication with Italy.  I cannot understand why you should thus hesitate about telling me the name of this commander.  When known it will doubtless be cursed by thousands of Moorish wives and mothers; but we Berbers are another race.  None of our friends or kindred were on board the fleet; and we traders have rather reason to rejoice, for, in the first place, so severe a lesson will keep the corsairs in their ports for a long time; and in the second, had the fleet succeeded according to general expectation, so great a store of European goods would have been brought home that the market would have been glutted, and the goods in our storehouses would have lost all their value.  What reason, then, can you possibly have in refusing to tell me the name of the commander who has won for himself such credit and glory?”

Gervaise saw that Ben Ibyn was seriously annoyed at what he deemed his unaccountable obstinacy.