“Your tongue runs too fast, child,” her father said, as he rose and walked across to Ralph.  “You are welcome, Sir Ralph, very welcome.  I pray you enter and join us.”

“I will do so with pleasure, Signor Vrados, if you will also extend your hospitality to my friend Sir Gervaise Tresham.”

“Most gladly,” the merchant said.  “I pray him to enter.”

The two knights passed through the gate in the wall.  All rose to their feet as they went up to the carpet, and greeted Ralph with a warmth which showed that he was a favourite.  He introduced Gervaise to them.

“I wonder that I do not know your face, Sir Knight,” the merchant’s wife said.  “I thought I knew all the knights of the Order by sight, from seeing them either at the public ceremonies, or observing them pass in the streets.”

“For the last nine months Sir Gervaise has been an anchorite.  He has been learning Turkish, and has so devoted himself to the study that even I have scarce caught sight of him, save at meals.  As for walking in the streets, it is the last thing he would think of doing.  I consider myself a good and conscientious young knight, but I am as nothing in that respect to my friend.  I used to look upon him as my little brother, for we were at the House of the Order in London together.  He is four years younger than I am, and you know four years between boys makes an immense difference.  Now the tables are turned, and I quite look up to him.”

“You will believe as much as you like, Signora, of what Sir Ralph says,” Gervaise laughed.  “As you have, he says, known him for some time, you must by this time have learnt that his word is not to be taken literally.”

“We learned that quite early in our acquaintance,” the girl who had first noticed them said, with an affectation of gravity.  “I always tell him that I cannot believe anything he says, and I am grateful to you, Sir Knight, for having thus borne evidence to the quickness of my perception.”

By this time the servants had brought some more cushions, and on these Ralph and Gervaise seated themselves.  Wine, sherbet, and cakes, were then handed round.  The master of the house placed Gervaise on his right hand, as a stranger.

“You have been among our islands, Sir Gervaise?  But indeed, I need not ask that, since I know that you and Sir Ralph were knighted together for your valour in that affair with the ships of Hassan Ali.  We come from Lesbos.  It is now eighty years since my family settled in Rhodes, and we have seen it grow from a small place to a great fortress.”

“’Tis a wonderful place,” Gervaise said.  “I know nothing of the fortresses of Europe, but it seems to me that no other can well be stronger than this —­ that is, among places with no natural advantages.”