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

“Members of the Order,” he said to the overseers, “your guilty companions have met death by their own hands, as the others concerned in this plot have met theirs by the swords of the knights. It were well that this matter were not spoken of outside the prison. The attempt has been detected, and has failed; but were it talked of, it might incite others to repeat the attempt, and possibly with better success. Now,” he went on, turning to the governor, “our work is done here. Call up the other warders. Let them take the men now prisoners in the rooms, and place them in a dungeon. Let fresh men be placed on guard, and let all the knights gather in the courtyard.”

When this was done, and all the knights again assembled, D'Aubusson said, “Our work is nearly done, brothers. The traitors are all dead, and the revolt is at an end. It remains but to capture the author of this attempt; but I believe he is already in our hands. I have given an accurate description of him to Da Veschi, who has taken four knights with him, and they probably will catch him down at the port; if not, he will be arrested the first thing in the morning. As to the slaves, they will be so utterly cowed by the discovery, that there will be no fear of their repeating the attempt. I have ordered the officials of the prison to say naught in the town of what has taken place. There can, however, be no concealment among ourselves. I shall, of course, lay the whole matter before the council. The fact that a strong body of knights has, at so late an hour, started on some unknown mission is, of course, already known in the auberges of Auvergne and England. No concealment of the facts is therefore possible. It is the most serious attempt at a revolt of the slaves that has ever taken place, and will be a warning to us that more vigilance must be exercised. As it is, we have only been saved from the loss of our galleys and slaves by the acuteness of one of the youngest of our knights, who, in the first place, noted a suspicious occurrence which would have been passed by without attracting a moment's thought by ninety-nine out of a hundred men. He laid the matter before his bailiff, Sir John Kendall, who accepted his offer to disguise himself as a slave, to enter the prison under circumstances that would excite no suspicions among the others, and to live and work among them in order to ascertain whether there was any plot on hand. This task—a painful one, as you may imagine—he carried out, and for two weeks he rowed as a galley slave. His lot was as hard as that of the others, for, as he had reason to believe that some of the officials were concerned in the plot, it was necessary that all should be kept in ignorance that he was other than he seemed to be. Thanks to his perfect knowledge of Turkish, he was able to carry his mission through with complete success, and to obtain full particulars of the plot we have tonight crushed. The knight who has performed this inestimable service is Sir Gervaise Tresham, of the English langue. The action he has performed will be noted in the annals of the Order as an example of intelligence and of the extreme of self sacrifice, as well as of courage; for his life would have been assuredly forfeited had the slaves entertained the slightest suspicion of his real character.”

There was a murmur of acclamation among the knights. Not one of them but would have freely risked his life in the service of the Order, but there were few who would not have shrunk from the idea of living as a slave among the slaves, sharing their tasks, and subject to the orders of men of inferior rank and often brutal manners.

The knights now returned to their auberges. It was past midnight, but at the English house the lamps and flambeaux were lighted in the great hall. The servitors were called up, wine placed on the table, and the knights discussed the incidents of the evening.

When the meal had concluded, Sir John Kendall said, “Brother knights, when the grand master bestowed the honour of secular knighthood upon this young comrade of ours, he predicted that he would rise to high distinction in the Order. I think you will all agree with me that the prediction is already in a fair way of being fulfilled, and that the services he has rendered to the Order justify us, his comrades of the English langue, in feeling proud of him. I drink, brothers, to his health.”

A loud shout rose from the assembled knights, for upon the return of the party who had been away, the rest of those at the auberge had hastily robed themselves and descended to the hall to gather the news. When the shout had died away, and the wine cups were emptied, Gervaise, who was sitting on Sir John Kendall's right hand, would gladly have retained his seat, but the bailiff told him that he must say a few words, and after standing in embarrassed silence for a minute he said, “Sir John Kendall, and brother knights, I can only say that I am very sensible of the kindness with which you have been pleased to regard what seems to me after all to have been a very ordinary affair. I saw a man, whom I knew to be a stranger in the Island, speaking surreptitiously to a slave, and afterwards saw him conversing with a prison officer. That naturally struck me as curious, and I followed the officer, to see to which prison he belonged. Any one would have thought, as I did, that such a thing was strange, if not suspicious, and the only way to find out whether there was anything in it was to mix with the slaves; as I spoke Turkish well enough to do so I asked Sir John Kendall's permission to disguise myself. He gave me every assistance, and I shared their lot for a fortnight. There was no very great hardship in that—certainly nothing to merit the praise that Sir John Kendall has been kind enough to bestow on me. Nevertheless, I am very glad to have gained your good opinion and very grateful to him and to you for drinking to my health.”

Then he sat down abruptly.

Sir John Kendall now rose, and the knights, following his example, betook themselves to their dormitories.

The next morning notices were sent by the grand master to the bailiffs of the auberges, and the knights of the grand cross who happened to be in the Island, to assemble in council. Messages were also sent to Gervaise, requesting him to repair at the same hour to the palace, as the council would probably require his attendance.

“Oh dear! I wish this was all over,” he said to Ralph, as the latter assisted him to buckle on his armour.

“I don't see anything to sigh about,” Ralph said. “I think that you are the most fortunate fellow in the world. I do not say that you have not well deserved it, because it is the tremendous way you worked at Turkish and gave up everything else that has enabled you to do this. Still, there was luck in your noticing that villain talking to the galley slaves, and then to one of the officers of the prison. Of course, as the grand master said last night, it isn't one in a thousand who would have thought anything more about it, and I am sure I shouldn't; so that, and all the rest, is entirely your own doing. Still, it was a piece of luck that you noticed him talking with a slave. Don't think I envy you, Gervaise; I don't a bit, and I feel as much as any one that you have well deserved the honour you have obtained. Still, you know, it is a sort of consolation to me that luck had a little—just