the danger of your mission.  I cannot send one of our war galleys on such an errand, and if there are not enough knights on board to beat off any pirate, the fewer there are the better.  I hear that the craft is a fast sailor, and as the crew will be as anxious to avoid pirates as you, they will do their best to escape.  I leave it to you to take any route.  You can either sail hence direct for Acre, or you can coast along the shores of Anatolia and Syria, lying up at night in bays.

“Should you be overtaken I do not think it would be of any use for you to disguise yourself, for some of the crew would be sure to denounce you.  Should the worst happen, and you are captured by pirates, you will of course in the first place show them your safe conduct, and if I find that you do not return I shall send at once to the governor of Syria, complaining of your capture when furnished with his safeguard, and requesting him to order a search for you to be made at every port on the coast, with instructions that you are to be at once released, and either sent to him for return hither, or placed on board a craft bound for any Christian port; while you, on your part, will endeavour to acquaint the Turkish authorities with the fact that you have been seized while travelling with a safe conduct from the governor of Syria.

“But, more than from any efforts on your part or mine, I rely upon Suleiman Ali, who will, I am sure, as soon as he is set on shore, lose no time in acquainting the pasha of your capture, and in calling upon him to interfere in your favour.  In that case, the worst that could befall you would be a temporary detention, unless, indeed, the pirates should take you to Egypt.  As that country is friendly with us at present, since Egypt dreads the ever increasing power of the Turks, it will be but a question of ransom, for I have secret agents there who will inform me without delay of the arrival of a Christian captive.”

“I understand, sir, and will do my best in the matter.  If I am captured I trust that an opportunity of escape will soon present itself, for I should, if taken, conceal from my captors the fact that I understand their language, and should thus, if I could evade my guard, have every chance of escaping, as in a native dress I could meet and converse with those hunting for me, without their having a suspicion of my being the white slave for whom they were in search.”

“Once at Acre you will be safe.  But do not land unless it is absolutely necessary, for you might fall a victim to the fanaticism of its inhabitants, and no knight has ever set foot on shore there since the ill fated day when the Moslems wrested it from us, bathed the ruined walls with the best blood of our Order and the Templars’, and destroyed the last hope of our ever recovering the Holy Sepulchre.”