He smiled craftily, and said that even as a dead man he could scarce have forgotten that, by reason that he had muttered the words to himself on his way oftener than any old monk mumbles his Paternoster.  And when Uncle Conrad laughed and bid him jestingly repeat it, he said, like a school boy who is sure of his task:  “For Master Herdegen Schopper, slave of the said unbeliever Abou Sef—­[Father of the scimitar]—­in the armory of Sultan Burs Bey in the Castle of Cairo, a ransom is demanded of twenty-four thousand Venice sequins.  George—­Christina!  Death and fire on the head of the misbelieving wretch!”

When we heard this we all believed that he had of a surety been wrong as to the sum or the coin, likewise we thought his last strange words were due to a wandering mind; howbeit, we were soon to learn that verily his tidings were the truth.  He forthwith went on to say with some pains that his master had made him to use a means by which he might remember the number from all others in case, by ill-hap, the letter should be lost.  And on this wise he gave us to know for certain that the vast sum demanded was not an error on his part.  It was to this end that he had stamped on his memory the names of Saint George and Saint Christina, whose days in the calendar are on the 24th of April and the 24th of July, and the number of thousands named for the ransom was likewise four and twenty.  Also Herdegen had bid him think of twice the twelve apostles, and of the twenty-four hours from midnight till midnight again.  It would seem beyond belief to most folks, he said, yet it was indeed twenty-four thousand, and not hundred, sequins which that devilish Sultan has asked, as indeed we must know from the letter.  Presently, when he had rested a while, we made him tell us more, and we learned that the Sultan had been minded to set Herdegen free without price, and he would have had him led forthwith to the imprisoned King Janus of Cyprus, to whom he thought he might thus do a pleasure, but that Ursula Tetzel, who was standing by with her husband, had whispered to the Sultan that she would not see him robbed of a great profit forasmuch as that yonder Christian slave—­and she pointed to my brother—­was of one of the richest families of her native town, who could pay a royal ransom for him and find it no great burthen; and that the same was true of Sir Franz, who was likewise to have been set free.  Hereupon the Sultan, who at all times lacked moneys, notwithstanding the heavy tribute he levied on all merchandise, commanded that Herdegen and the Bohemian should be led away again and then he asked this overweening ransom.  Then Ursula took upon herself of her own free will to send tidings of the Sultan’s demands to the slaves’ kith and kin, and of her deep malice had never done so.

That evening we might not hear how and on what authority Eppelein knew all this, for much talking had wearied him.  All we could then learn was that it was Ursula, and none other, whom the lad would still speak of as the She-devil, who had plotted the snare which had well nigh cost my other brother his life.  Yet had he left him so far amended that he, Eppelein, would be glad to be no worse.