home, since you cannot comport yourself to the servants of the auberge as befits a knight of the Order.  We have always borne the reputation of being specially kind to our servants, and it is intolerable that one, who has been but a short time only a professed knight, should behave with a hauteur and insolence that not even the oldest among us would permit himself.  There is not one of the servants here who was not in his own country of a rank and station equal, if not superior, to your own; and though misfortune has fallen upon them, they are to be pitied rather than condemned for it.  In future, you are to give no order whatever to the servants, nor to address them, save when at meals you require anything.  If you have any complaints to make of their conduct to you, you will make them to me, and I will inquire into the matter; and if I find they have failed in their duty they will be punished.  I shall keep my eye upon you in the future.  There are other faults that I have observed in you.  More than once I have heard you address Sir Gervaise Tresham in a manner which, were not duelling forbidden by our rules, might bring about bloodshed; and from what I have seen when I have been watching the exercises, he is as much your superior in arms as he is in manner and disposition.”

This reproof had greatly subdued Robert Rivers; and as he felt that any display of his jealousy of Gervaise would be resented by the other knights, and might result in serious consequences to himself, he abstained from any exhibition of it when they returned to the auberge, although he could not bring himself to join in the congratulations offered to them.  The next day, however, when he was talking to Ralph Harcourt, he remarked, “From what I hear, Harcourt, D’Aubusson praised young Tresham very highly.  It seems to me that there was nothing at all out of the way in what he did, and it was very unfair that he should be selected for higher praise than yourself.”

“It was not unfair at all,” Ralph said warmly, for he was of a generous nature, and incapable of the base feeling of envy.  “Tresham did a great deal more than I did.  When we saw the pirate boat gaining so fast upon us, it seemed to Sir John Boswell, as well as to myself, that there was scarce a chance of escape, and that all we could do was to choose a spot on which to make a stand, and then to sell our lives as dearly as we could.  I could see that Sir John was scanning the hill for a spot where we could best defend ourselves.  As to hiding on so small an island, with a hundred men eager for our blood searching for us, it was well nigh impossible.  It was Tresham’s suggestion alone that saved our lives and enabled us to fetch succour to Sir Louis.  Sir John, who is an old and tried soldier, said that for quickness and merit of conception, the oldest knight in the Order could not have done better; and he is not one to praise unduly.  I am four years older than Gervaise Tresham, but I tell you that were he named tomorrow commander of a galley, I would willingly serve under him.”