A Knight of the White Cross: A Tale of the Siege of Rhodes by G. A. Henty (free novel reading sites .txt) 📖

are apt to leak out. A muttered word or two in sleep, or the ravings of one down with fever, might afford ground for suspicion, and torture would soon do the rest. I myself know nothing of the secret, but I do know that there is something going on which, if successful, will give us our freedom. I am content to know no more until the time comes; but there are few, save those engaged in the matter, that know as much as this, and you can see that it is better it should be so. Look at that man opposite; he has been here fifteen years; he seldom speaks; he does his work, but it is as a brute beast—despair has well nigh turned him into one. Think you that if such a man as that were to know that there is hope, he would not be so changed that even the dullest would observe it? I see you are a brisk young fellow, and I say to you, keep up your courage. The time is nearer than you think when you will be free from these accursed shackles.”

Each morning, as he went out to work with his gang, Gervaise saw the servant from the auberge standing near; but he made no sign. He was satisfied that his suspicions had been justified, and that he was not leading this life in vain, but he thought it better to wait until the week passed, and he was taken away to have his colour renewed, than to make a sign that might possibly rouse the suspicions of his comrades. On the eighth morning, when the door of the room was unlocked, the overseer said—“Number 36, you will remain here. You are wanted for other work.”

After the gang had left the prison, the overseer returned.

“I am to take you up to the English auberge. The knight who handed you over to me when you landed, told me that you might be wanted as a servitor; and as it is he who has sent down, it may be that a vacancy has occurred. If so, you are in luck, for the servitors have a vastly better time of it than the galley slaves, and the English auberge has the best reputation in that respect. Come along with me.”

The English auberge was one of the most handsome of the buildings standing in the great street of the Knights. Its architecture was Gothic in its character, and, although the langue was one of the smallest of those represented at Rhodes, it vied with any of them in the splendour of its appointments. Sir John Boswell was standing in the interior courtyard.

“Wait here for a few minutes,” he said to the overseer. “The bailiff will himself question the slave as to his accomplishments; but I fancy he will not be considered of sufficient age for the post that is vacant. However, if this should not be so, I shall no doubt find a post to fit him ere long, for he seems a smart young fellow, and, what is better, a willing one, and bears himself well under his misfortunes.”

Then he motioned to Gervaise to follow him to the bailiff's apartments.

“Well, Sir Gervaise,” Sir John Kendall exclaimed, as the door closed behind him, “have you found aught to justify this cruel penance you have undertaken?”

“As to the penance, Sir John, it has been nothing unsupportable. The exercise is hard enough, but none too hard for one in good health and strength, and, save for the filth of the chamber in which we are shut up at night, and the foul state of the rushes on which we lie, I should have naught to complain of. No, I have as yet heard nothing of a surety—and yet enough to show me that my suspicions were justified, and that there is a plot of some sort on foot,” and he related to the two knights the conversation he had had with the galley slave.

“By St. George!” the bailiff said, “you have indeed been justified in your surmises, and I am glad that I attached sufficient importance to your suspicions to let you undertake this strange enterprise. What think you, Sir John Boswell?”

“I think with you, that Sir Gervaise has fully justified his insistence in this matter, which I own I considered to be hare brained folly. What is to be done next, Sir Gervaise?”

“That is what I have been turning over in my mind. You see, I may have little warning of what is going to take place. I may not hear of it until we are locked up for the night and the affair is on the point of taking place, and it will, of course, be most needful that I shall be able to communicate with you speedily.”

“That, of course, is of vital importance,” the bailiff said. “But how is it to be managed?”

“That is what I cannot exactly see, Sir John. An armed guard remains in our room all night. But, in the first place, he might be himself in the plot, and if not, the slaves would almost certainly overpower him and kill him, as a preliminary to the work of knocking off their chains.”

“Is there a window to the room? At least, of course there is a window, but is it within your reach?”

“There are six small loopholes—one on each side of the door, and two in each of the side walls; they are but four inches across and three feet in length, and there are two crossbars to each; they are four feet from the floor.”

“At any rate, they are large enough for your arm to pass through, Sir Gervaise, and you might drop a strip of cloth out.”

“Certainly I could, Sir John. I could easily hide a piece of white cotton a yard or so long in my clothes, scanty as these are, and could certainly manage, unobserved, to drop it outside the window.”

“Then the rest is for us to contrive, Boswell. We must have some one posted in the yard of the prison, with instructions to go every ten minutes throughout the night to see if a strip of white cotton has been dropped out. When he finds it he must go at once to William Neave, the governor. He is a sturdy Englishman, and there is no fear of his having been bribed to turn traitor; but it were well to take no one into our confidence. I think we cannot do better than employ Ahmet on this business, as he already knows that Sir Gervaise is masquerading there. We will have William Neave up here presently. Tell him that for certain reasons we wish Ahmet to pass the night for the present in the prison, and arrange with him on what excuse we can best bestow him there without exciting suspicion. At any rate, Sir Gervaise, that is our affair.”

He went to a closet and took out a white mantle, tore a strip off the bottom, and gave it to Gervaise.

“It would be best not to keep you here any longer,” he said, “so renew your stain while I speak. As soon as you learn the details of the plot, you will drop this out from the loophole on the right hand side of the door; that is to say, the one on your right, standing inside. If the affair is not to come off at once, it were best for you to proceed as before. Ahmet will be outside when you go out with your gang, and on your nodding to him we will make some excuse to take you away on your return. I say this because if you see that the affair, whatever it is, is not