The Siege Of Malta

PART II - ST. ANGELO
by S. Fowler Wright

Frederick Muller
1942
See prequel Part 1 - ST. ELMO
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Based on an unfinished romance by Sir Walter Scott.

THE SIEGE OF MALTA - ST. ANGELO

CHAPTER I

        "You are one," Captain Antonio said, "for whom I would do much. If it would not ruffle your pride, I would call you friend. But there is a length to which you cannot ask me to go. I will not be hanged for that slut."

        Francisco controlled his anger in a way which, had he considered it, might have been surprise to himself. It was an evidence of the strait in which he stood, which he was coming to see, and which a quarrel with the Genoese sailor would not relieve. But it was the most he could do to reply in temperate words.

        "I must ask you to take that back, after which we can talk of that which is on your mind."

        "Why, so I do, if you wish," Antonio replied, in a ready way. "I will call her La Cerda's mistress, or what you will, but you must allow for this, that I have known her before."

        "I should say that you do not know her at all."

        "Well, so you may. It is a thing I have never sought. So of what she is, or is not, I will say no more, except that she is one for whom I am loth to hang."

        "So you have said once before. But you are not asked. Do you know where she is now?"

        "I could make a most excellent guess."

        "So might the Provost-Marshal himself and guess wrong. They cannot hang you for that."

        "Yet if there be signs littered before my eyes - "

        "Which you have no occasion to see."

        "Which it might be said that I have. . . . And it is not for myself that I fear alone. For who does that which I must say that I do not know that you do - he is in a most perilous pass, for the Grand Master is one that not only the Turks may dread."

        "Yet he may threaten that which he would not dare, or for which his strength would be too weak at a test. I am more in my own land than was he in his, and there are Spanish knights who would be my friends, should he seek to abuse his power."

        "Do you think that? It is a test that you should not try. You would go down like a straw. . . . Even La Cerda is more than most in his own land."

        "He was not long held. He was soon free."

        "So he was. But it was said that the Grand Master did it himself, both to bind and loose, his friends looking another way. . . . They say that there is none but one to whom the Grand Master will give more than a moment's heed when his mind is set; and your friend that was has his ear, as the talk goes. It is Sir Oliver that I mean, as it may be needless to say. But you have quarrelled now with your friend, so that there would be little comfort in that, even were there more at the most."

        "I know little of what you mean. I have quarrelled with none."

        "Well, you should know of that better than I. . . . But I had observed that you do not meet since you took - I will say since you took what was there from his own room, and came away with a shortened sword."

        "It was not broken as you suppose: the point caught by chance in a chair's arm."

        "I have never doubted your word. But I may conclude that the point was bare."

        "You must conclude as you will, but it was not pointed at him; nor did he draw upon me, as he never would."

        "You may be right there, for I should say that he is not one whose sword would be quickly out. Yet I have a doubt when I say that for I should not think him one who is poorly dowered either with courage or pride. . . . There have been times when I have thought that he would make a better maid than some are. But when I have seen how Sir Oliver sends him forth in most perilous ways I have put it by. I suppose that there are so few here wearing shift or gown that our eyes can no longer compare in a true way. . . . But I have vexed you again, and I know not why? I will be resolved to say naught, and to see no more. I will not even know that your sword snapped. For I am resolved of two things beyond that. I will neither hang for her nor will I quarrel with you."

        Francisco felt that their words could not end in that way. He had found Captain Antonio, though not of his rank or race, and though they were of many alien habits and thoughts, yet to be a man of some good parts, and with the will of a loyal friend, and he had became aware that his friends were few. He was young, and of a reserve which was partly shyness and partly pride. The Knights of Malta, for the most, were much older men. He had been brought up to regard the Order as the first cause for which men must live and be very willing to die. To that extent he was one with the spirit that drew them there from ease and honour in many lands, to be at the Grand Master's command and to die for Malta's defence. But, beyond that, he had little in common with most of those among whom he moved, and though he might have made some friends of the right kind had he been placed on the wall amid the knights of his own land, yet, being in command of a battery that stood somewhat apart, and having to keep station there for long hours of each day, he knew little more of the knights of Castile who were lined on the eastern wall than when he had landed two months before.

        He felt, rather than thought, that it would be a fool's part to let Antonio sulk, and the little Captain's face showed more offence than his words held. Yet he did not ask for a full confidence which, indeed, he might have good cause not to desire. Francisco answered with such measure of frankness as Antonio might be likely to take in the right way.

        "If you had asked, I would not have held it from you, though it is not to be widely told. It was La Cerda drew upon me, Don Garcio not being there. When he came he made peace, being my friend in that, for I was reduced to two feet of blade and such aid as a dagger gives. . . . But it was true that the sword had snapped as I told you before. It was a mischance of the narrow room."

        "Well," Antonio replied, "I did not doubt what you said. Nor do I ask what she did in the bedchamber of the one, nor why the other should have drawn upon you. But I may conclude that he is less than your friend; and it is a fact I cannot fail to observe that since the day you have walked aside of where Don Garcio goes, while I had thought before that you used some contrivance to meet. . . . I have no concern with the cause of this, but I must suppose that, if you were in the Grand Master's peril for aught you do, the Knights of Sicily would be dumb, and there might be those of your own land who would say no more, and I would rather see you with more friends and to need them less."

        "So would I," Francisco replied, "and it is a friend's thought, and I must thank you for that. Yet I do not feel in more peril than I may lightly endure, for even if that should be laid bare of which it is agreed that we shall not speak, you must not disregard that I have not taken the Order's vows, to which it cannot be held that I should therefore conform in their monkish way, nor am I in the Grand Master's danger to that degree."

        "That is true; and it is what, at such a pass, you would be certain to say. But I should be loth that my own life should hang on so thin a thread. For it is time of war, and you are under his rule, and I should say that the Grand Master's regard for any logic of speech would be of less than a groat's worth when his wrath is high."

        "He has such repute," Francisco agreed; "but my uncle called him a friend, and I would not think him to be without some recollection of that. And it might be thought that there are foes enough over the wall, even for him, that he need not be stubborn to vex his friends."

        This conversation took place three weeks from John Baptist's day, when St. Elmo fell. Francisco had become slow to leave the battery now and quick to return, even though Antonio might be in charge, for none knew when or where the Turks might attack next, either by water or land. Now their fleet was anchored in the harbour waters over Scebarras ridge, and the whole army was camped round the land-ward walls. St. Angelo could no longer hear the sound of guns which were pointed another way, and look across at an agony which it did not feel. The shots shook their own walls and battered the houses within the town.

        The hardest part must now be sustained by those who manned the fort of St. Michael which stood on the Sanglea spur, and the outer walls of the Sanglea, for the inlet which was its southern side was neither deep nor of great breadth, and the Turkish batteries rose on the height of the opposite shore and Turkish troops swarmed at its land-ward end. But the Turks were now on all sides, and so closely drawn both by land and sea that there was no point at which instant watch must not be kept; none from which peril might not suddenly rise to a deadly height; none which was safe from the risk of a flying death.

        Compassed thus, there was a show of reason in Francisco's complaint that even La Valette might be content with the count of his outer foes, and shun the making of more from those who would be his friends.

        The Turks blew what boast they could of St. Elmo's fall. They loaded the wreckage of thirty guns into a galley which would bear them as trophies to Byzantium's quay. If Dragut were dead (which could not be denied), De Broglio was dead too, having spoken no further word since he made the Grand Master his parting jape. The Turks made a list of the great knights who had died in defence of St. Elmo's wall, and it was better reading to them than it would be in the Christian lands.

        Had the Viceroy yet sent the relief which should have come on John Baptist's day? He would have said yes, which the Grand Master would have denied. He should have sent a great fleet, and an army which would have enabled Couppier to draw the Turks from St. Angelo's walls to guard their own heads on an open field. He read orders from his master, the Spanish king, which were not meant to be clear to any except himself and, if he read them aright, they were such as he did not like.

        He had pledged his word to Valette, and he knew where his honour lay. It was Spain's honour alike. Yet could he go against the King's will?

        He ordered that the two galleys which had belonged to the Maltese knights should put to sea, and he added two which flew the ensign of Spain. He filled them with volunteers, who crowded Sicily at this time, seeking to aid Malta's defence from love of race, or love of God, or of what we will.

        He put the four galleys under command of Don Juan de Cardona, a good knight, with written orders that he should approach the island in such a way as would be most likely to avoid the Turkish fleet, and to learn whether St. Elmo yet stood.

        If it had fallen, he was to bring back the troops, for what use would there be in so small a force, if the strife went ill, and the Turks were already crowding round St. Angelo's walls? But if St. Elmo stood, and the Turks had the worse loss, he was to land them during the night, and leave promise of more to come.

        Cardona read this order and may have thought it good, or may have cursed those whom he would not name. There is no record of that. But he sailed his galleys under cloak of night, to cast anchor outside Pietro Negri, and there he landed a knight who learnt that St. Elmo had fallen some days before.

        There is some doubt of his name, by which we lack that of a valiant man, but he was one who had come to Sicily with the purpose of aiding the Christian cause, and having now landed in Malta, he had no mind to go back. He returned to Cardona's ship, where he lied in God's name, and we may suppose that the saints were glad. He said that St. Elmo stood and the Cross prevailed. Cardona did not question that which he may have been hoping to hear. He landed forty knights and seven hundred other soldiers of sundry sorts. He sailed back to Palermo with empty decks, having avoided the Turks again, and bringing a tale which he held for true, though it was soon changed by other reports.

        The men who had landed thus in the night did that which made sport of the rules of war, as courage so often will. They marched where they wished to go, and so passed through the Turkish lines in a silent file, entering St. Angelo's gate without sound of a hostile shot, the Turks not having kept a good watch against that which was unlikely to be.

        The Grand Master was glad of the aid that came and saw that its meaning was clear. For the time he had got all that he would from the crown of Spain. He did not despond for that, but he observed that he must prepare for a lengthened siege. He went over his stores. When he had done that, he made an order that Turkish prisoners were not to be taken, as food would be needed for better mouths. There had been little of quarter or mercy on either side before now, but there was none from this day. To each side their foes came to be held as no more than pestilent rats, till the last should be slain or gone, and Cross or Crescent should float in the only peace that either side could conceive in a single land. . . .

        The news of St. Elmo's fall spread through the lands of Christ, and there were many of every faith whose hearts were heavy thereat. Even the English Queen, though it was by her will that those of the Order of St. John had been chased away, forgot the bitter Protestant feud, and ordered that there should be prayer for the Maltese knights in all the churches of which she was called the head.

        Caring nothing for Christian prayers, Mustapha Pasha tightened his lines of siege and made his batteries strong.

CHAPTER II

        THERE was no station in St. Angelo's girth, either by water or land, that was not fronted by active foes. The weakest point, as Mustapha saw, and Valette would have agreed, was the Sanglea, with St. Michael's fort at its highest point both because it was separated by the inner harbour from St. Angelo and the Bourg, and because of the shallowness of the inlet which protected its southern side.

        It was against the Sanglea that Mustapha now directed his heaviest guns, and planned that which he expected to be decisive attack; while the Grand Master, warned both by his own military knowledge and by the report of a Greek-born engineer, Lascaris, who had deserted to the Christian ranks from a high post in the infidel army, that it was there that the first fury of storm would beat, laboured with an energy that seemed to increase with the passing days to strengthen barricades and make bastions firm; so that, while they were battered by Turkish shot, the defence, now here, now there, grew more formidable with every hour.

        So that he should attack St. Michael both by land and water, and yet not risk his boats beneath St. Angelo's guns, Mustapha had a number of these, of the largest size, dragged on rollers over Scebarras ridge; and against this threat (which Lascaris may have betrayed) the Grand Master barricaded the mouth of the shallow inlet with piles; to which Mustapha replied by searching out men who could swim well, that they might ply axes at the right moment to break them down. . . .

        Hearing its need, La Cerda came to the Sanglea, where his station was. He might have been excused for a further time, having an arm that he would not use for a long space, if it should heal at all, which was leis than sure. But he would not be held slack in the cause for which he had come, so long as he were not driven too hard on what he thought to be the wrong road.

        Admiral Sir Peter del Monte was in chief command at Sanglea, having the Italian knights under his rule. La Cerda reported to him that he was fit and willing to take his place on the wall.

        Sir Peter, a discreet man, of that type of valour which makes no foes, and who was to be Grand Master himself at a later day, looked at a swathed arm, and said: "It is not what I had guessed, had I not heard it from you."

        "But my sword arm," La Cerda said, "is still good."

        Sir Peter thought of several things he might say, of which he said none. What he did say was: "If you are so resolved, I must not deny, having too urgent a need: and you are one I am glad to have."

        La Cerda set his pennon on St. Michael's wall on the next day, having no mind that any should say that he loitered at such a time nursing a wound. He had a bitter wrath against La Valette, whom he would gladly have slain at a quieter time.

        He charged him in his heart with Venetia's loss and perhaps her death. For he was convinced that she had had no purpose of flight when he had left her, a few hours before she was gone. That he thought (and was right in part) was the result of Valette's harshness to him. She had fled in panic, when she had heard that he was arrested without a cause - had fled to what fate, and where? It might be to death or torture or unspeakable shames at the infidels' hands. And he held Valette to be guilty of this by his intolerance of the natural conditions of human life; as also by the arrogance with which he imposed his power upon those who were of nobler blood than himself, and of higher rank in their own lands: and who might, by whatever scale of judgement, be better men; and also by the stubborn military folly of which he had made him the victim first, and then unjustly confined him without trial or question asked, which had been the final cause of Venetia's flight.

        His attachment to her might have no spiritual profundities, no intellectual support, but it was real in its own way. He loved her for what she was, as well as what he supposed her to be. At the least, she was a possession he valued much. She was the most costly of all the gay material things: castles and woods, horses and hawks, tapestries and jewelled clothes, which had embroidered his life till now.

        And Valette had taken his mistress, as he had taken his horse, and had even done these things without courtesy of request, in an unmannerly way, like the boor that he surely was. He had assaulted his honour too, which might have been as hard to forgive had not La Cerda felt that his loss was less under that count. It stood, he thought, too secure for Valette to have pulled it down. Yet even there he had a wound that he felt more than a burnt arm, it being the pain of that which drove him to take the wall when most would have said that he was unfit to serve.

        For it is certain that he did not go thus to the wall because his passion for slaying Turks was beyond control (as might have happened to some of the Order's knights), nor did he think St. Michael's peril to be so nicely poised that it would stand or fall by his single arm. He went that he might assert his valour in all men's sight, and be esteemed among the Italian knights who were his natural friends.

        The last hour he had had with Venetia, when Angelica left them alone, had assured him both of her loyalty to himself and of her innocence of any different offence. He would have sought her now, to the delay of his pennon's flaunt, as well from obstinacy as regard, but that he was not sure that it was what she would thank him to do.

        If he found her, could he protect? It was a bitter question to have to ask himself, and take a doubtful reply.

        If he should find her, and did not disclose her hiding, it was doubtful that he could do her any avail, while the search itself might be watched by those who would make it their aid to find her for other ends. And if any were giving her harbour now in the town, to disclose what they had done would be to put them in the way of a likely death.

        If she had escaped, whether to Christian or Turk, whether by land or sea, he could do nothing to aid her more. If she were still in the town she would hear of him, though he might know nothing of her, and she might find safer means of letting him know of any need that was hers than he could find to reach her.

        These things were simple to see, but they did not content his mind. It is always harder to remain still than to act, even though action and wisdom may not lie in the same bed. He must learn what he could, and for this there were three to whom he could talk, though in different ways.

        He would see Sir Oliver and Don Garcio (as he supposed she must still be called), and Don Francisco, whom he had ceased to suspect. He had La Valette and the Provost-Marshal further back in his mind.

        He went to Sir Oliver first, who received him with courtesy though without warmth, being a tired man, and burdened with matters for which he felt greater concern than for any troubles which (he would have said) La Cerda had brought on to his own back.

        "You will admit," La Cerda said, "that she was one whom it was my part to protect, having brought her here."

        "It may have been your part," Sir Oliver replied, "but it was not mine. Yet I did something in that, and perhaps more than I should; and I think, had she not fled as she did, I should have sent her hence with a whole skin."

        "With a whole skin!" La Cerda exclaimed, taking the phrase in a more literal way than it may have been meant, "would you say that she risked that? Why what, in the devil's name, or in the Grand Master's if you prefer, had she done but what her honour required? I should say that some have been sainted for less than that. . . . And does he think that she can be shamed and my honour stand? It is poor reward that Sir John gives to those who put all aside that they might come here at the greatest peril that well could be."

        "You speak," Sir Oliver more quietly replied, "beyond reason and beyond fact. You have not been without cause for wrath, and there are matters in which I have not been less than your friend, as perhaps you see.

        "But I must remind you first that she was kept here by a trick, after I had secured that she should be sent safely away. That was an affront to me, of which I might say more than I have yet done, and you may see how your honour came clear in that (if I may say it without offence) more than I have been able to do.

        "And, beyond that, when a man is slain at a dagger's point, in a place apart, it is required in all lawful lands that he by whom it is done (and a woman cannot be in a better case) shall come forward to show that there was sufficient cause. What has she done? She has replied by hiding and flight, as one who protests her guilt. Yet, had she been found, she would have had fair trial of all, as I may say that she will now.

        "But the last thing I must say is that you use the Grand Master's name as it is not reason to do (I say naught of our vows, of which each must judge), for we did not come here as doing favour to him, but as being joined in a common cause; of which, by our own votes, we had made him head."

        "Yes. We were demented in that."

        "I must differ there. I say he is the man for this hour, and a better would not be easy to find."

        "Well, he is friend to you."

        "He is more than that. He is Malta's shield."

        "So he should be. We will not quarrel for that. I came not to ask of him. Have you tidings of her?"

        "I can answer freely in that, having had none. We may hope that she has fled far. But if I knew more, I might have said less, rather than told it to you. I cannot counsel more as a friend than when I say you should put her out of your thoughts. This is not randomly said, for it is like I know more of her than you ever will. I say not this of myself but of the office I hold. It is my business to know."

        There were angry words on La Cerda's lips, which he did not speak. He remembered that he had come there resolved that he would not injure his cause (or else hers) because patience failed, as he had done before then.

        "But I will tell you this," Sir Oliver went on; "if you find a man who is giving her harbour now, you will meet one who is next neighbour to death, for orders may not be lightly flouted in time of war. I had that in mind when I said that I hoped she had fled away."

        "You would let me know without pause, if she were found?"

        "Yes. It would be your due."

        "Then I can ask nothing more."

        He rose with these words, feeling that it would be waste to speak more, and aware that Sir Oliver would be very willing for him to go. He resolved that, should she be found, as he thought it likely she would, he would test his strength to the last friend he had before he would see her shamed or death come to those who had been her aid. . . .

        She lay on a bed at this time, having excuse that there was little else for her to do. She had learnt that La Cerda was released from any charge the Grand Master had made, and that he was walking abroad, though with an arm that was thickly wrapped, at which she bit a petulant lip. Would he neither prevail nor die? A protector who could no longer protect was no use to her. She cursed the day that she had lost sight of Sicily's shore. "I lie here," she said to herself, "and the food is poor. And if it were better, I dare not eat as I would. I must starve or grow fat as I lie here. . . . Yet it might be changed for a worse jail. . . ." She thought of La Cerda again and wished he were dead, which would solve much. For she had other plans that went well.

CHAPTER III

        LA CERDA met Angelica in the hall.

        "Don Garcio," he asked, with more courtesy than he would have given to whom she professed to be, "may I speak with you apart?"

        "Yes," she said, with a readiness which she would have found it hard to assume, "we can talk here, if you will. . . . But will you do me the kindness to recollect that I am that which you called me now?"

        As she spoke, she had turned to a window-seat in an alcove near, which was so placed that those who were seated there could not be secretly overheard. She had no quarrel with La Cerda, whom she might rather have felt to be somewhat in her own case, and in an alliance of which she could not make him aware, but the tone and gesture of his address had been such as would be given more naturally to a woman than to another knight, and her first thought had been to restrain that and to draw him quietly apart. It was only when they were seated that she recalled that there were things which she knew or guessed that he must not suspect, but by that time the frankness of her first response had assured him that she had no reserve on her mind, and that her sole fear had been that he might make disclosure of whom she was, which her first words confirmed.

        "I would be sure," she said, "that you would not reveal - "

        "It was needless to ask, for that which you did being for Venetia, and therefore for me, we are bound alike to hold the confidence which you thereby gave."

        "I did not doubt," she replied, "that you would regard it thus; but I had rather in mind that more is disclosed by inadvertence than by design." She did not add that she would not trust Venetia a yard away, let him protest as he might. If Venetia kept a closed mouth, it must be that she could open it to no gain, or that it had been shut for another than her.

        "It shall be my care," he said, "that I do not err in that wise.

It was from your room, as I understand, that Venetia went. May I ask if you have either knowledge or guess as to where she may be now, which, though you might withhold from others, you would not cover from me?"

        "She went while I slept, having said nothing of her intent. I have not heard from her since."

        "Do you think she went out alone, or was she taken or lured?"

        "As I think, she went of herself, and with a good will, for she had unbolted the door, and she had dressed with some leisure and care, taking some things of mine which she must have preferred."

        "It was freely done," La Cerda allowed. "She may have thought it was for your own peace that you should have no knowledge of where she went."

        Angelica agreed about that, thinking it might have even more reason that he supposed. She said: "Well, she took naught that I grudge, and her need was surely the more." She turned the course of her words to ask of his hurt, which he answered was well enough. He looked at her for herself at this time, and had a wonder of what she did. He could not think that she had come with no more resolve than to be her cousin's mistress in that inferno of bitter war, nor did it consort either with the way in which he had seen her to risk her life in active affairs, nor with Sir Oliver's knowledge of whom she was and that she was allowed to remain. Yet Sir Oliver (he reminded himself) had been more lenient to Venetia than the Grand Master might have approved. It was a puzzle it might be profit to solve, with Venetia in jeopard, and in a case that seemed somewhat alike, and yet it might be that which his honour would not allow.

        "I would," he said, "that you could have shown me more than you do. But I can see that she went in a secret way. I owe you thanks, which I will pay if occasion come."

        He went with no other courtesy of retreat than he would have shown to a knight of his own rank, being much younger than he.

        Angelica reflected that she had revealed no more than she had told Sir Oliver at the first, and that La Cerda had no share in her own guess, of which she supposed that she must be glad.

CHAPTER IV

        LA CERDA had resolved that there was one more to whom he should have something to say, though with less expectation that there was knowledge of Venetia to be gained. Still, he told himself, he had gained nothing where he had gone in more hope, and the third attempt might well result in a contrary way.

        He was rebuffed at his first effort to meet Francisco, being told that he was seldom seen in the castle now, and that his chamber was given up to another knight.

        "Well," he thought, "I suppose there is one above that will do better for him, when he has the time to come here." But that thought was confused by what he heard in the next breath.

        "Don Francisco will not leave his battery more than he must, the Turks being round on all sides, and none knowing when they may assault the boom which it is his special duty to guard, but I should say that he has less cause to come here than he once had, for he had but one of whom he made friend before, that being Don Garcio, who is of a land that is near to his, and it has been observed that they will not meet since the time when, as it is said, Don Garcio had a -" The speaker, an old gossiping knight, who was too maimed for the wars, and had an usher's duty about the hall, became suddenly aware of the indiscretion he had been near to commit. He was so facile of tongue that he had hardly regarded until that moment that it was La Cerda to whom he spoke. He remembered that the wanton of whom the talk had been that she was found in Don Garcio's room (but whom no one had seen) was said to be one that La Cerda had kept for his own bed.

        He added: "There is always talk, which is mostly false, and the rest better unsaid. But it is true that they do not meet, for either will turn aside to avoid that, as I have observed more than once, as I have stood here."

        La Cerda thanked him, and walked on. The battery was not far. He could quickly be there. That Francisco had quarrelled with Angelica since they had fought in her room might point to something he had not guessed, and that it would be useful to know. But he saw that the evidence did not go far. If a special intimacy had been noticed between them, it might be policy only which now kept them apart - a discretion that came too late, and that might be most strictly observed when a certain old gossiping knight had his eyes upon them in open hall.

        The battery of which Francisco had charge lay, as has been previously observed, outside St. Angelo's wall, on the narrow space that divided the citadel from the harbour waters. It had, in that respect, a position that was specially precarious, mitigated by the fact that it lay so closely under the castle's seaward guns and that it could only be attacked from the water while St. Angelo stood.

        It had a further peculiarity, or potential weakness, in the fact that its guns did not point outward across the harbour, where its own danger lay, but were mounted diagonally to St. Angelo's wall, being trained to protect the boom, which closed the inner harbour from hostile attack, and protected the Maltese fleet, which was anchored therein.

        The obligations of military discipline can never be more urgently necessary than in a place that is closely sieged, and defended by a mixed garrison in which there is no unity either of language or race, the dangers of treachery or surprise rising under such conditions to their maximum possibilities. It might be said, beyond that, that the exposed position of Francisco's battery, being beyond the main walls of defence, imposed a special obligation of vigilance, for though, as yet, he had commanded no more than an idle post, and might continue to do no more till the siege should end, yet if the call to defend himself or the boom should come, it might be both sudden and vital in its demand.

        La Cerda did not expect to find the battery wide open to any who might wish to inspect its guns. Even in time of peace there might have been less freedom than that; but he encountered a rigidity of discipline and precaution beyond anything which he had expected to meet.

        Though his dress and demeanour proclaimed him an Italian knight of high rank, and would have enabled him to walk freely through most places within the Christian lines, he found himself challenged sharply before he had even entered the trench by which the battery was approached on its northern side. At the further end of that trench the password and his own name proved insufficient to procure him a further advance until the Captain's will should be known. The sentinel was deferential enough, but his halberd remained lowered across the way.

        He was kept there for more minutes than his dignity could lightly endure before Captain Antonio came, so that he had leisure to observe, so far as his position allowed, that the battery was now a larger and more substantial work than he had expected to find, and to hear sounds of mattock and spade proclaiming that its strength was not yet equal to Francisco's desire.

CHAPTER V

        CAPTAIN ANTONIO might have come at a better speed had he been otherwise engaged than he was or had he heard any name but the one he did. It was but a few moments before that he had stood at the backs of two men who had not heard his approach, owing to the noise of the excavating at which their companions worked, and at which they should have been doing an equal part.

        "But," he overheard, "if it should be she for whom the proclamation is made -" The man's voice ceased, as he became aware that his captain was not more than three paces away.

        Lonzo," Captain Antonio asked, "of whom are you talking now?"

        The man became silent, looking confused, and would have been urged by a sharper word, but his companion replied:

        "It is that he saw a lady enter the Captain's room, when the moon shone over the scarp."

        "Then," Captain Antonio advised, "he should drink less."

        "He is not one," his self-appointed advocate replied, for the man said nothing at all, "to drink more than he should."

        "To how many has this folly been told?"

        "To no other but me, for I am his only friend, and he had mentioned it but a moment before."

        "Which was too soon for such talk. Lonzo, I say this to you, and to Pietri alike. There could be no lady enter the Captain's room, for there is none here. I swear that by Our Lady Herself, which is not an oath on which I would be forsworn." He added the names of certain Genoese saints which he was known to revere, feeling that what he did should be done well, and assuring himself that he swore truth, for who could call that slut by the name which God's Mother does not despise?

        "No," he said, "no madonna is there. It was the shadows that lied of the passing clouds. . . . But I will give you counsel that you should heed.

        "You are men who have been chosen by me, being changed from those who were first here, as you all are. You are well paid from the Order's chest, and you have more beyond that, which Don Francisco supplies. You were chosen thus because there is little that can be said or done, whether in castle or town, of which the Turks do not hear by the next day, and Don Francisco was well resolved that no word should pass out from this place, for which the reason is known to you.

        "Now if you should gossip in foolish ways, you would show that you are not worthy of such a trust. You might find yourselves in a worse place and taking a smaller pay. And if you should tell a tale that was false you might end, beyond that, where you would be sorry to be. For it is by such ways that men come to the lash or the prison cell, who are too good for such use.

        "And even if you should tell one which is true (but which you need not have seen, had you looked aslant), which you could not do for this time, there being no substance in what you say, should you be the better for that?

        "Let us suppose that you had come on traces of her for whom proclamation is made, as you were rashly saying you might have done. Well, it would be your duty to so report. I shall not tell you other than that. But would it be to your gain? I should say not. You would be a witness to be questioned apart. If you did not say all that they would think that you ought to know, or if there should be dispute, so that your tale should become suspect and yourself therefor, would not the thumbscrew be called to aid? He is a man with good eyes who can be blind when he should not see. It is such men who live long."

        The man, Pietri, who had seen the wraith in the night, and who had been silent till now, found some words to say when Antonio's lecture was done.

        "Captain," he said, "I have eyes which see well in the light" (he could not deny that, for it was as a gunner that he drew pay), "yet it is well known that they are of little avail when the light is poor."

        "So I had supposed," Captain Antonio replied, "from that which I heard you say." And as he spoke there was one at his side with a tale that La Cerda was there, and seeking speech with Don Francisco on private affairs, and there was no name that Antonio, who desired trouble neither for others nor for himself, would have been less willing to hear.

        "Well," he said, "let him wait, while Don Francisco shall be informed. . . . Or it may be enough that I see him first, for it may be a matter too light to disturb Don Francisco's rest."

        And having said that, he went in no haste (for he had some thinking to do), to where La Cerda waited at the near end of the trench.

        He met a man whose patience was not reputed to last overlong, and was near its end, whom he greeted with the deference that his rank required, but without speaking the one word that La Cerda expected to hear.

        "I have come myself," he said, "being in command while Don Francisco is taking rest, and he having given me charge that he shall not be called unless there is reason of war."

        "The matter on which I came," La Cerda replied, "is one on which I can speak only to him. . . . Do you say that he will sleep long?"

        Captain Antonio would have liked to lie, but he was not sure that he would be thanked by him for whom it would have been done. "He is to be roused," he said, "within half an hour of this time."

        "Then I will wait, in what comfort you have, making my time his."

        "My orders," Captain Antonio replied, in some embarrassment, which was not usual to him, "are strict and exact, that none may enter beyond this point, except at my captain's leave."

        La Cerda stared his surprise. "Why, man," he exclaimed, with more contempt for him he addressed than he would have shown at a better time, "do you think I shall stand here? Do you call me Turk?"

        Antonio felt a doubt of whether he had been as wise as he wished. Orders were strict, and had a cause which the Grand Master himself would have approved, but he was not sure that they should be applied to one who was a Commander of the Order himself, and whom he knew well by sight. Beyond that he had a shrewd doubt that he was acting as he would not have done but for another thing, which it was equally sure that the Grand Master would have condemned, and of which no suspicion, however faint, should be allowed to rise in La Cerda's mind.

        "You will admit," he said, "that in time of war orders may be so framed as to hinder those for whom they are not meant, and that he may take blame who shall interpret them in a better way, being beyond that which he has commission to do. Yet I am assured that this order was not to have held you here, and it shall be my risk that you wait in a better place."

        La Cerda was little appeased by an admission that came too late. He said: "You are a wise man," in a tone that proposed a doubt, or at best that his wisdom had been tardy in its advice. He followed Captain Antonio through a tunnel which had been hewed from the rock, having small chambers along its side, and was again surprised that so much had been done at what he had thought to be little more than a gun-platform outside the wall. He came to where the guns were, and saw two long culverins of the newest make pointing through embrasures which showed him, as in a frame, a picture of the long floating boom and of St. Michael's fort at its further end, and something of the inner and outer harbours to left and right.

        "I had not been told," he said, "that you had such weapons as these. I thought that you had but three sakers, such as would throw their discharge to little more than the boom's length."

        "So we had," Captain Antonio replied, "and so we have still," and he pointed to where these cannon were drawn aside, "but Don Francisco would have these guns from the Santa Martha, which was his own ship, thinking that they might be of more use. . . . It is that which is known to none but the twelve men we have in garrison here, and the seamen by whom they were brought during the night, which must be excuse for the strict orders I have that none shall enter without his leave."

        La Cerda was more appeased when he saw that it was something beyond the routine of a leaguered place which had held him back; he unbent enough to discuss matters of warfare by land and sea, on which Captain Antonio had some observations of wit to make and some tales to tell. The time did not seem long before Francisco appeared.

        He had heard already, by Captain Antonio's care - though no more than the bare fact - that La Cerda waited him by the guns. He could not guess what La Cerda knew, nor to what questions he might have to make instant reply, and though he came forward in a quiet and confident style, born of his pride and his blood, yet he could not tell, being young, how he should act, nor what he would be likely to say.

        La Cerda, having folded his cloak for a seat, had found comfort enough on a stone ledge of the parapet which protected the guns. Captain Antonio stood at his side, in which positions their heights were not so different that they could not discourse with ease. La Cerda rose as Francisco approached, and looked at one who seemed to have advanced in dignity and the qualities by which manhood is known since he had seen him before, more than the short weeks would explain. "War," he thought, laying praise at a wrong door, "may do much for those men it does not kill."

        He spoke at once when they met, without waiting to be asked why he had come.

        "Don Francisco," he said, "I am still in doubt of whether I owe you thanks, or the word of regret that it may be knightly to speak at times, or no more than a bare sword, such as was between us before, but, by your leave, I will put such questions aside at this time, both because it is hour of war and because you could say that I am unfit" (he looked down at his bandaged arm) "to support my words, and also until I am more fully informed. But I would ask you now, on your knightly word, if you can give me help on a search which I still make?"

        "Chevalier," Francisco replied, "it is knightly said, and I will answer it in the best manner I may.

        "As to ourselves, there are times when I have the same doubt; but, by your own choice, I will say no more, except that, as I suppose, my honour is still clean.

        "As to what you ask, I would ask this in reply: If one should know, or suppose, to where the lady Venetia has made her retreat, is it that which should be told to any without her leave, she being in the great jeopard she is, and there also being proclamation of death against whoever may have taken her in?"

        La Cerda weighed the implications of this in a mind that was alert, and with suspicions not buried to any depth. He remembered what he had been told in the last hour, that Francisco had quarrelled with her whom he supposed to have been more close than she was, and that that had been from when they had found him in the room where Venetia lay. It was a simple conclusion that Francisco could tell him where she now was, and a presumption that she was still in the Maltese lines. His doubt of Francisco's faith stirred him to an anxious wrath that he could not lightly restrain.

        Yet restrain it he did, remembering the declaration that he had just made; and so, reflecting that it was by patience, if at all, that he would come to the knowledge he sought, he made a reasoned reply.

        "As to that - I must conclude that you would not propose it in such a form unless your own knowledge made it to be of something more than idle debate - you may think the Lady Venetia's jeopard to be much more than it is. I have been told by Sir Oliver Starkey himself that she may not have much to dread if she will come forward now, and I should say that her peril is greatly more while she lie concealed, for she will have less mercy to hope if she be dug out than if she will now advance, saying that she did but wait till I should be free to give her support.

        "As to the part of who may have been her aid I will say this: It could be told to me - as I think it should, I having the right I have - on my plighted word (which should be assurance enough) that there would be no disclosure without consent, nor such as would bring him to peril he might have missed."

        "There would be the question, beyond that, of her own will."

        "Which you would ask me to doubt?"

        "I mean that she may not agree that she can come forward at little cost, and a mistake would be learned too late."

        "But is it not that for her, and for me? Do you propose that I might betray her against her will?"

        La Cerda spoke now with an impatience he could hardly repress. Francisco's words seemed to make it clear that he knew where Venetia lay, and his tone to imply that he had a right of decision, and even to speak for her, which gave jealousy more grounds than the position must have contained in its simplest form.

        Yet he reminded himself again that, if Francisco had secured her safety when he was himself unable to do so, there might be a debt of thanks to be paid in a better form than the base coinage of suspicions which might be utterly false, and, beyond that, he must have put himself in a peril which was even greater than hers, and that alone must give him some right to say what should be done now. And while he strove to control himself to a temperate mood, and yet one which would still persist - for he was resolved that he would not now turn from that quest, till he had heard Venetia protest her truth with her own lips - Francisco answered with more candour than he had spoken before.

        "Chevalier," he said, "I would have you know that I wish to act as a knight should, and I will say that I have no practice in such matters as this, and that I would that the course of honour were more easy to see.

        "I will tell you that she came to me, being in a great dread, when she heard that you were powerless (as for that time) to be her support. She asked for aid which I did not refuse, and I suppose that we may have no quarrel for that."

        "As to that," La Cerda interposed, "you have thanks." The words were well enough, but they were without warmth, as though he waited to hear that which was still to say.

        "I put myself in your hands," Francisco went on, "in the confidence of your own pledge, and because you urge that you have a right to be told, when I say that I may know where she is now. But you must own that my obligation is not to you, but to her. I will see her between now and tomorrow noon, and, if I have her consent, I will then lead you to where she is."

        La Cerda heard this, and suspicions stirred with more force in his mind and would not be still. He was not too angry to see that, in the strict logic of the position, Francisco was right; but passion put logic aside to ask with what object he had helped her at all, and why he should be in doubt (as he professed) as to whether she should be willing for him to tell where she now lay. He had to remind himself of his bandaged arm, and of the resolution he had made, as he replied:

        "Well, it is but a day, and I suppose there is no doubt of what her answer will be. We will so agree till tomorrow noon, if you will assure me of but one thing, which you will forgive that I ask - "

        But the question, which might have brought crisis in its reply, was not asked, the words being drowned in a thunder of Turkish guns which broke out in a sudden fury of storm from every battery round St. Angelo's girth. It was a thunder that did not cease, and La Cerda said: "I must seek my post. I will be here at tomorrow noon."

        He spoke to one who had ceased to give attention to him, and went in haste to take boat across the inner harbour to reach his place on St. Michael's wall. He went through a bustle of those who ran different ways with the same object as he, for the noise of the Turkish guns was now drowned in the nearer thunder of Christian reply, and the bells tolled to call all men to their stations upon the walls.

CHAPTER VI

        SIR OLIVER picked up his sword, which he did not constantly wear. He was slightly bent with his studious toils, so that, as they stood, Angelica's height was little the less and in the supple straightness of youth she might have been held for the better man.

        "We must to the wall," he said, "and I would that you had some armour of proof, of which I should have warned you before, though it has been my thought to hold you excused, as long as I can, from the active strife which you should not see, and of which, as I suppose, you will be in no danger today. . . . It is the risk of a straying shot."

        "You mean that they will not attack our part of the wall?" ..

        "Yes. For it is what they cannot do until they have made much further advance, unless it were from the sea, with the fleet to aid."

        "And they will not do that?"

        "No. It is such a risk as Piali might not scruple to try, but Mustapha would not waste ships and men in so simple a way. It would be stone against wood, and at a short range, and our cannon pointed downward upon their decks. . . . There is no peril of that. . . . The Turks will fire from all sides, that we may be in doubt of where they will throw their strength, yet that is not in much doubt. It is St. Michael that they will pull down, if the fiends are strong."

        Sir Oliver went to the wall where he held command, rather in the routine which would not let any part remain unwatched at a time of storm than with expectation that there would be occasion for its defence. He had sent the best part of his own men to the support of those who were more likely to face attack on the Bourg front, but he had little doubt that it was on the southern side that the worst fury of storm would beat for that day.

        He went on, as he ascended the winding stair, with Angelica at his side:

        "There is a friend of yours who has come, so it is said, to the Turkish camp. I mean Hassan, whom you met on his own deck, and who, by Dragut's death, is now Viceroy of the whole Barbary coast. I should have said on a deck which he had made his, having beer ours at the first, and where you made him your jest, as we may suppose that he will not quickly forget. I should say that he would have more lust to meet you again than it would be pleasure to you. Which is a reason (for you) that we guard our walls."

        "Is it sure he is here?"

        "There is the Flying Hawk in Massa Muscetto bay, which he is said to choose for his own ship since he took it from us, finding its speed to be hard to match. . . . There is no doubt he has come, and with him some thousands more of the corsairs that Barbary breeds. He is lord now of all Tripoli and Algiers, and it is said that Dragut's wealth is for him, to augment his own. He keeps Mahound's law so far that he has not Dragut's liking for rum, but that he holds to the Prophet's limit of wives is what I have not heard, though it may also be true."

        Angelica laughed in her quick way at a recollection which came with Sir Oliver's words.

        "I know not how many he have, nor how few, but I was to be extra to them, unless Dragut should refuse to forego my price for a better deal. . . . I thought it was time that I came away."

        It was a danger passed, at which the light spirit of youth could look back in a mocking mood, but there was no levity in the tone with which Sir Oliver made reply.

        "The saints keep you from that! - as they doubtless did, with your own courage to aid. But you may well pray that you do not fall to his hands for a second time, which would be no jesting for you."

        "Well," she replied, somewhat sobered by this, but still feeling confident against a danger so vague and far, "I suppose I am secure for this time; and I have heard you say that if we fret at a distant fear we are likely to vex our peace for that which will never be. . . . Is St. Michael in peril beyond likely defence? Are we greatly maimed if it fall?"

        "I would not say that it is in peril beyond repulse, nor that we are lost if it fall. St. Michael is more strong than St. Elmo was, whether we reckon by weight of guns or by height of walls, or by its nearness to us. But the whole length of the Sanglea is less strong, and that not only where it faces the land but because its southern water is shallow, so that it is said that it may be waded at more places than one, and it is no more than a short gunshot from shore to shore.

        "If St. Michael fall we shall still stand, but we shall have a wound which will bleed much. It is a greater risk that they will cut it off, winning the Sanglea, so that the inner harbour and our galleys would be under their fire, but we may have good hope that they will not prevail, even to that."

        They spoke amid a surrounding rumble of guns, and the louder separate thunder of those that fired from the castle walls that were near at hand. It was clear that the Turks attacked with their utmost force, being insurgent on every side. Mustapha, having slain the calf, had now come for the cow, and would not be lightly denied.

        Angelica watched from the outer angle of the wall, where her station was, and could see little beyond the smoke of St. Michael's guns and that which rose and drifted over the Sanglea, which, being lower and further from her own front, was beyond her sight, though she could see part of the inner harbour where the Maltese galleys were sheltered safely as yet, and the boom at its mouth was beneath her eyes, as was the battery of which Francisco had charge. She saw him at times, waiting watchful beside his guns, though as yet they could not point at a foe. But it would not be supposed that he should attempt to look up to a place where he did not know her to be, even if he would if he had. . . .

        The hours passed, and Sir Oliver came to her side.

        "There is little use that I stay here, where we can but watch what we do not share. I have given command to the Chevalier de la Roye, for I have more urgent matters with which to deal. You must stay, for you make one, and give release to a man who can be used at another place. . . . But what are they that come out from the further shore?"

        There was a scurry of strife at this time at the entrance to the inlet which was south of St. Michael's fort, which was almost beyond their sight, where Mustapha's swimmers strove with axes to break down the palisade, and Del Monte had called for volunteers to swim out and prevent the damage they sought to do.

        He found no lack of those who could swim and who would risk their lives in that way, but the palisades were easier to break down than to mend, and while men fought like sharks in the reddened flood it was broken in places beyond repair. . . .

        Angelica, watching from St. Angelo's higher wall, could see ten great boats come out, one after one, from the further shore. They were loaded with men, bearing more than a thousand in all, and they came at a great pace, being propelled by those who knew that a second saved might be no less than the lives of all.

        Avoiding all but such guns of St. Michael's fort as could be hastily trained their way, which were neither many nor of much range, they came round toward the gaps in the palisade which had been broken to let them through, aiming to pass under St. Michael's fort and take by storm the long, low waterfront of the Sanglea.

        "If they succeed in that," Sir Oliver said, "they will thrust a wedge between the fort and those who defend the Sanglea on its land-ward side, so that those last may be surrounded and sped," and as he spoke a rumble of distant sound arose to further confuse the tormented air, from where, far beyond their sight, Hassan's corsairs swarmed to attack the Sanglea at its southern end.

        "Francisco," Angelica said, looking down, "is getting busy at last. But what can he hope to do?"

        "Well," Sir Oliver answered to that, "I did not know that he had guns of so great a range, for he was set there to defend the near boom. But if you ask what he can do, I must reply that it will be nothing or all."

        Francisco looked out through an embrasure from which pointed the long black muzzle of one of the culverins which he had brought from his own ship and he knew that his day had come.

        "Antonio," he asked, "could you reach them now?"

        The little captain looked out over the boom, past the entrance to the inner harbour, past the spur which was crowned with St. Michael's fort, to where the ten great boats came on, with trails of following foam, toward the gaps in the palisade which he could not see.

        "I could reach them now, but there would be those who would get free, if they were speedy to turn. I will wait yet for a minute's space." He spoke to the man who stood waiting his word at the other gun with his linstock lit: "You said your sight was good in the day? It is now you must prove your word."

        A moment later, Angelica, looking down, saw sudden flashes that came as one from the out-thrust muzzles. She saw the great guns leap to the recoil, wrenching their chains. She heard, next instant, the double thunder of their discharge amid the din of encircling sound.

        Far out, on the harbour water, a boat sank by the head, spilling its cargo of dead and maimed, and of those who would be unable to live in an element they did not know. Another boat was struggling to turn, pushing frantic oars, while the water poured through a broken side. Below, the two guns were being sponged and loaded anew, and, as it seemed, in no more than a moment's time, they were thrust outward again, sending an even more deadly message of death to boats which had now bunched in a confusion between those who would fall back, those who would still go on, and those who lay on uncertain oars disputing among themselves. But after those second shots, there was but one mind among men who saw that their deaths were near: they turned in flight and, as they did so, the cannon thundered again.

        Of the ten boats which set out, bearing about eight hundred of the janissaries which were the flower of Mustapha's troops, and two hundred more of the Tripoli corsairs that Candelissa led, there was but one that got back to the shore; and but two hundred men, including those who were able to swim to land, who would answer their names when the roll would be called on the next day.

        Antonio, overlooking the cleaning out of the culverins with a gunner's eye, knew that their work was done for that time and, perhaps, till the siege should end. But it had been enough. It was an example of that which is frequent in the annals of war, of a device which goes beyond that for which it was thought at first; for it was a battery that would not have been erected at all but that the Grand Master had been urgent to protect the inner harbour, where the fleet must be laid up, with an ample boom, and then with guns to defend that. And so it was seen that, with longer guns, it might be used to another end, firing over Isola Point to guard the approach to the Sanglea, which would be likely to be much sooner attacked.

        "We shall see no more," Sir Oliver said, "from this point, and I cannot longer remain. But you may have a good hope that St. Michael will not go down for this day, and your cousin has won a praise which, as I suppose, will be the talk of more lands than one."

        He went with that word, but the noise of storm that beat on the Sanglea did not slacken till evening fell.

CHAPTER VII

        VENETIA, clasping small, soft, muscular hands behind her pale-gold head, and lifting a flower-fair face to Francisco's regard, had a thought of content, both for the judgement which had brought her to where she lay and the skill with which she had handled a position which had been novel to her, so that the highest stake for which she could play might still be within her grasp. She had come to a rich market, where the prospects of barter grew better with every day.

        Now she listened to Francisco's account of how he had shattered the Turkish boats, and she thought him one who might rise high in the turbulent world she knew. She did not think of it as much more than a fortunate chance (as it was), though the idea of the longer guns had been his, with a boy's desire to make the most of his own command. Actually, he seemed to her, at this moment of conscious triumph, younger, less mature, than she had seen him before, as the excitement of the deed broke through the reserves which were born of shyness and pride, and had been augmented by the restraints which he practised toward herself.

        For the moment, it even caused him to forget La Cerda's visit, and that which must shortly be asked of her.

        Venetia, surveying the world around her with cool and accurate eyes, did not regard him as a genius of battle, but as a gallant and very fortunate boy, which it was much better to be. For fortune, in her world, was a very tangible thing.

        It would have been absurd to compare him, in military experience, in political knowledge, in a score of various abilities, with La Cerda, who had the name of one of the most capable men of his troubled times. But what was the use of that, if it had not kept him from the Grand Master's disgrace, from the peril of St. Elmo's massacre? He was one to whom fortune showed a frown which seemed unlikely to change. . . . And Venetia meant that Francisco should give her more than it could ever be in the power of La Cerda to do.

        Her first thought had been no more than to change protectors, when it had seemed that La Cerda's star had been near to set; and had he been later by half an hour when he came on Francisco and her in Angelico's room, she might have put the virtue of the younger man to a test which it would not easily have sustained. But after that she had changed to a bolder dream. To be Francisco's mistress might be pleasant enough, but it would be better to be his wife.

        There was nothing in the fact of her known position as the amie of a monkish prince to prevent such a marriage, either in civil or ecclesiastical law, or in the social customs that ruled the time. There was more obstacle in the gutter from which she came, but even that was no more than had been overcome by other women who were among the highest in Europe then. Indeed, her position as La Cerda's mistress might be held as evidence that it had already suffered its first defeat. By the code of that day, it was demonstration that she could not be entirely unfitted to become one of the most honoured ladies of Spain. Still - she had far to go, and some high barriers to be overcome.

        She did not doubt that she had shown wisdom in her restraint, though she chafed at times that she must not follow her body's will. To be wanton to this proud and very innocent boy (who was nearly of her own years, but was child to her) would have been pleasant enough, and would have held him by a strong cord, but she had resolved that she would be a madonna instead, and was shrewd enough to see that she took a way that held him more strongly still.

        So she endured the confinement of the small chamber of stone, coming out only at night, as her safety required, feeling that she had found a safe lair at a very difficult need, and that she was not wasting her time.

        None would disturb her there: the discipline was too strict: the movements of the men too straitly controlled. The turn in the stone entrance, which was in lieu of a door, and was intended to secure the occupant from the danger of shot, or flying fragments of stone, was as absolute as a concealment could be, unless one of the men should step in, and look round into his captain's retreat; and who would venture to leave his post for such a purpose as that?

        Even so, he might have been silenced or cajoled, either by bribe or threat; but, in fact, none looked, and none but Captain Antonio, who had an adjoining retreat, had suspicion, until she had become careless, and stood revealed to a sudden moon, of which she was still unaware. A few yards from the movements of men, she had been as secure as though separated by dividing miles.

        She had used the exigencies of that narrow space, into which Francisco must frequently come, and where he must sleep and dress, with a discreet skill, which would have been beyond the resource of one less experienced in the world's ways, and in the habits and dispositions of men.

        He had given up his chamber within the castle, under pretext that he would not leave the battery now that St. Angelo was so closely besieged, but with the further reason that he must be constantly there to secure the privacy for his own cell that it had become vital to have. He must make it his in fact, as well as in name, that the intrusion of others might not be risked.

        In this intimacy, she had been careful to maintain a physical distance, a discreet modesty, such as would hold his respect: she had made pretence that she trusted his chivalry as sufficient shield for one who was La Cerda's mistress, not his.

        But having established this distance first, she had proceeded to allure him with every weapon she had, either of beauty or wit, as though seeming unconscious of what she did; doing no more in this than to secure redundant victories in a strife she had already won. And gradually, as the days passed, she had hinted in casual ways that she was in no haste to return to La Cerda's arms. Was it wonder if he dreamed, though with slender hope, of a time when she might come to his in a woman's way? That she was seldom out of his waking thoughts? That in his heart he cursed the way that she had come to his power, so that he supposed he could not press her to love without his own honour's loss, unless they should come to a freer time? Understanding which, Venetia smiled in the dark, and was well content. . . .

        Now, after she had lain on her couch in that narrow place, listening to the confused uproar that told of the Turkish storm, and then to the crashing discharge of culverins that were not many yards from her own head, Francisco had come to tell her of the effect with which he had been able to use his guns.

        "It will be," she said, "a most high honour for you; for which the Order should give you thanks in a public way."

        "They will not do that," Francisco replied, being a better prophet than she on that point. "It is not their way. Nor have I done more than to take a chance that came to my hands, and I could not miss. I have done nothing, beyond that I changed the sakers for guns of a better length that were idle in my own ship, it being moored to the inner quay. After that, the praise is for them who laid them well, that they did not miss."

        "But that," she said, "even though it were fairly said, is not how honour is paid. It is he who succeeds, from whatever cause, and he who is first in command on the winning day who will take reward. They would make you Commander, I well suppose, for this and your Uncle's name. But you do not think to take the oath of a Maltese knight?"

        There was something more than a casual curiosity in the way in which this question was put, something of the tone of one who has a personal stake at issue on the reply, of which he could not fail to become aware, as she may have meant.

        "I have not thought much of that," he replied; "it was my uncle's design, which, had he lived, he would have urged me to do. It is a high honour, and so esteemed in all Christian lands. But I like not the monkish vows."

        "The vows," she said, "are not such as can be praised by a woman's lips, be they evil or good. Nor am I likely to love that which has chased me here.

        "And the Grand Master," she went on, feeling it to be a discourse that the text required, "may not show his full wisdom in this, that he holds that we who have the high honour to be the consolation of Knights of God, are in ourselves of less honour than ladies should like to be; which is because, as I suppose, if he had his way, they would have no consolation at all, which may be more than men of a living blood will consent to endure.

        "But he would see, if his harshness of hate did not cast a scarf round his reason's eyes, that if we be faithful to whom we love, though we be not held in the Church's bond, our honour must stand with those who may be wed in a colder way."

        She spoke what she had thought out before, as having a good sound for Francisco's ears, but she was not unaware that it had more than one edge, coming from the lips of her who had little will to be true to La Cerda now. She had a sound instinct that, though she might be legally free to wed, she would have a better chance to win Francisco to that end if La Cerda were not alive. Why would he not die, where so many did? Even St. Elmo had not been able to bring him to that!

        Her words brought La Cerda to Francisco's mind in another way, which was as unwelcome to him.

        "The Chevalier La Cerda was here today," he said, "enquiring for you.

        "Leon here! "she exclaimed. "You told him naught? He does not know where I hide?"

        Her voice was sharp with a sudden dread, which confirmed the doubt he had felt before as to what she would wish him to do, and gave him a satisfaction therefrom which it would have pleased her to know. But she had little pleasure in his reply, though he could deny that he had done that which was her first fear.

        "I said I could tell him naught, unless I have warrant from you."

She saw some implications of that which she did not like.

        "Then he must know I am here?"

        "He knows less than that. He will conclude that I can see you within the day. That I could not avoid."

        Could not avoid! She thought things which it would have been foolish to say. She grew very still, as she would when danger was near. Her face ceased to reveal her thoughts.

        As she was not quick to speak, he went on: "I have his promise that he will not make revelation of aught to which you do not consent; and even then it shall be in such form that there will be nothing said of how I have held you here."

        "And how," she asked, with some reason behind her scorn, "did he think to contrive that? We are to plead mercy of most pitiless men, and I with my hands red with the blood of death, and we are to elect what we will say, or where we will remain still. It would be to ask for the rack in an urgent voice!"

        "I know not what he may have in mind," Francisco replied, feeling that he faced a blame which should not be his, "but he would have it that I presumed too far in that which was his matter and yours, and on which he would let me know that you would come to easy accord if I let you meet. . . . But that his arm is not healed, and that I did not know what you would wish, it had been likely to come to steel, as it did when we met before."

        "When will he be next here?"

        "At tomorrow noon."

        "I will tell you before then what you shall say. We will leave it now. . . . But I have been sheltered here while the storm goes by, and to venture out, when there is no evident need - !"

        Francisco felt with her in that. For her to go would be as though the sun should have left the sky; and he could not think either that La Cerda would find her a surer retreat, or that she could now be disclosed without more trouble than it would be easy to overcome. Why must the man come with a bandaged arm? He should have been met with denial of all reply but a dagger's point, and if swords and daggers had soon been bare - well, there might have been some comfort in that!

        Even the great deed he had done had come to seem no more than a little thing, nor was he urgent to know whether, in that noise of strife that still thundered to south and east, the Sanglea endured or was overrun. War and love battled for his regard, and he was most aware of the tyranny of a woman's eyes, which might be withdrawn after they had lately softened to him.

        He went out to where Antonio watched by the waiting guns that. would not be loosed on another prey, or at least not for that time.

CHAPTER VIII

        MUSTAPHA, having resolved to attack the Sanglea with all the force that he had, had given Hassan sole command of the operations there against, both by water and land. He had done this because Hassan had come with a crescent fame: he had the vigour of youth: he had the confident manner of those who are sufficient for the crises of life: and his name was one to give valour to doubtful men.

        It was also to be weighed that he had had no share in St. Elmo's siege, and its abortive assaults, which had brought no glory to Turkish arms, but only reaped with a hungry sickle the lives of men. He came freshly upon the scene, with an unsullied prestige.

        But Mustapha, who resolved all in a subtle mind, had a motive beyond these. The losses of the regular army of the Turks, of the famous regiments of spahis and janissaries whose horsehair standards had been the terror of the Balkan battlefields for the half-century that had seen the Cross go down, and the rise of the Crescent Moon, had suffered losses since they had been landed in Malta two months before, of which he had dreaded to make report.

        He knew that Soliman would hear more lightly of the loss of every man that Dragut brought to the war than that one of his favourite regiments had been destroyed. And Dragut had stubbornly and perversely regarded matters in a quite opposite light. If Piali would attack too soon, he had said more than once, it should be Turkish lives that should be exposed to the Christian fire. He preferred that his pirates should live to another day.

        Mustapha considered the new levies that Hassan had brought, and he thought that it would be an excellent thing that they should advance on the Sanglea redoubts, and be shot down by St. Michael's guns. But he saw that Hassan might be of Dragut's mind, rather than his, on this point. To ensure that he should not refuse his own troops, there could be no better way than to give him command of the whole operation, to which, indeed, Hassan made no demur.

        He agreed to conduct the attack on the Sanglea, and that his own corsairs should lead the assault on the inland side. Mustapha made his mistake when he loaded the boats with the very flower of the Turkish ranks. He had been subtle in that too, not doubting that they would land, and at a time when the Christian strength would have been largely engaged (if not spent) in resisting Hassan's attack, so that the honour of success might be lightly theirs, as he would prefer it to be.

        Hassan made no more objection to that. With a seaman's eye, he may have judged the risk of the water attack to be greater than it appeared to one who was more familiar with operations on solid ground. He said that his own lieutenant, Candelissa, should command the boats, for which he was as good a man as could have been found. So it is said that he did. But as he was alive on the next day, we must suppose that he was in the one boat that was left unsunk, or that he found some pretext to stay ashore.

        When Piali sulked that the command was not to be his, as Mustapha had expected him to do, he was appeased with words adroit in a falsehood which could not be seen, if at all, till a later day: "This is not for you, whether it may fail or succeed. For, if it fail, it will remain yours to succeed at a better time. And should it succeed is there not St. Angelo standing beyond? It will be your turn for the greater deed."

        But in his heart Mustapha resolved that there should be no other name than his own to be linked with that last assault, when the eight-pointed cross should be trampled down from its last footing on Malta's rocks, as he had served it in the fertile garden of Rhodes, forty years before. . . .

        Hassan looked with cool and confident eyes on a chaos of strife and blood that spread far around the bastioned trenches of the Sanglea, and from which a confused and dreadful noise rose into the tortured air.

        The Christians fought well. So he had expected that they would do. The losses of his own troops must be rising to a high tale. He had expected no less. He knew (as De Broglio said before) that a fosse will feed on the lives of men. But he knew, beyond that, that the cost of failure, at the last count, is always heavier than that which success will ask. He did not intend to fail. He loved the war of the sea better than these bloody scuffles upon the shore, but, if he undertook to storm the Sanglea, he meant that it should be done.

        When they brought him the tale (which he had partly seen from afar) of the dreadful loss of the boats, he could afford to take it without despair, seeing how sorely he pressed the Christian lines by that time. He may even have thought: "Well, it is Tripoli will have honour here," with a content that he must not show.

        He looked at the Christian ramparts, against which his legions rose like a storming sea. Knightly pennons which had flaunted at dawn were no longer there. They were in his own camp, the raped spoil of waves of attack which had risen over the wall. These had been thrown back, but they rose again, and he watched for a higher wave to advance at last which would rise, and rise - and go on.

        They who fought to retain the low long ramparts of the Sanglea were not in danger alone from those who made its assault; they were exposed to a pitiless, ceaseless fire from a surrounding circle of foes, who were in number as six to one. They must show themselves to a hail of death, or, if they crouched low, it would be to see the gleam of scimitars rising over the wall.

        Hassan said: "It is time to bring this to a right end." He planned well. He saw that the most part of the defenders had been drawn to the eastward ramparts that faced the land, which it was his effort to take by storm. He judged that there would be few left to protect those that faced the inlet, between the land and the fort of St. Michael at the end of the spur. He ordered that the cannon that had bombarded the Sanglea over the narrow inlet, shattering the palisade which ran the length of the middle creek, should prepare to augment their fire. He chose men of good courage, used to water, and to taking ships by the board. He ordered that they should be led by those who knew where the shallow inlet could be waded, leaving their shoulders bare at the deepest parts. The shorter men were to fall out of the ranks at their own choice, should they be unable to swim.

        When he had launched these attacks, which he did not expect to succeed, he supposed that they would draw off many of those who were now on his own front, who were few and weary enough as they then were, and so the time would come for the last assault, by which he was resolved to prevail.

        He marshalled his best troops, which he had held back till that time, and rode along the front of the fierce turbaned ranks, pointing with his scimitar to the ramparts that had so far endured, but which he thought to be near their fall.

        "Sons of the Prophet," he cried, "I point the way of honour and safety alike, for if you allow yourselves to be thrown back now, as you need not be, you must charge again, at a further cost, till that wall is won. The Christian dogs are weary and few. Forward, my children, in Allah's name, and the town is yours."

        The fierce dark fanatic faces, lifted to his, burst into a wild barbaric cry, as of a beast that has scented prey. With shouts of God's and the Prophet's names, with clash of cymbals and throbbing of urgent drums, they surged forward to the attack.

        The Christians met them with a fire that strewed the ground with the best and bravest who led the charge, but it was one that would not falter nor pause. Gapped and thinned as they were, the ardent ranks swept on, and over the wall. Sword and scimitar, axe and pike, met in a turmoil of bitter strife, where no thought of mercy would be likely to come. Either side might have their own chivalries for themselves, but in this war they slew dogs, such as could not be too quickly sent to their native hells. He who, for the moment, could not meet with an active foe, would seek the wounded, to make an end with another thrust, knowing that what he did would be pleasing to God, and might cancel a score of sins. But such respites were few. Under the meeting ranks, fosse and wall became a shambles of blood and the trampled dead.

        Hassan had not led the charge, which it was not his business to do. But he rode forward, urging the rearward rank in support, and reined his horse so close to the fosse's edge that he could observe how each man played his part for honour or blame, which he would not forget to give.

        There was, in fact, little danger in what he did, for the discharge of firearms had almost ceased on both sides, now that they were locked in so close a broil that no shot could have been aimed at a foe which would not have been as likely to find its rest in a friend's back. He sat there as separate and secure as one who looks on at a show.

        As he looked, his face took on a stern satisfied smile, for he saw that his corsairs' fury was not in vain. Inch by inch, they won footing upon the wall.

        But the Christian knights, though driven back for some space, were of no disposition to fly. They fought on in a stubborn way, and others came running to their support. The strife swayed backward again. Hassan's face changed. He shouted encouragement to men who were unable to hear: who were most concerned with their own lives, as they struggled to hold their ground, drenched, as they mostly were, either with their own or another's blood.

        He saw that it was one of those moments when the issue quivers between victory and defeat, and may be turned by a shout, or a single blow. He rode his horse back for a few yards, and then forward toward the ditch, which he took with a flying leap.

        The splendid barb that he rode came down on the curtain's edge as surely as a swallow alights, but the next moment it rolled screaming upon the ground, its belly pierced by a Christian lance. Hassan avoided it as it fell. His scimitar came down in a flashing death upon a man whose lance could not be recovered in time to protect his head. He shouted a war-cry that rose over the clamour of meeting steel and the voices of frenzied men, and his name echoed an inspiration along the strife. The Moorish line was swaying forward again.

        La Cerda had been among those who had run to the support of that perilled front. He had been sent, on Del Monte's order, with other knights from a quieter place. They came fresh of vigour and heart among wearied and wounded men. For a moment they had sustained the defence, until Hassan had leapt the fosse. A short distance behind, Del Monte himself, with all the men he could spare from St. Michael's fort, was hurrying to the threatened line.

        Hassan saw a knight who was not easy to miss. He showed some freshness of silk, and of polished steel, among those whose armour was soiled and dimmed. He stood firm also, among men who gave ground, who flinched somewhat away. He bore no shield, but had his sword in a single hand, his left arm bandaged against his side.

        Hassan's scimitar, keen and curved, cut the air as it threatened the head of the Christian knight, and was parried well. Hassan had a small round buckler on his left arm, to take the point of the straighter sword which was the weapon of Western lands. So it must do now. The two warriors found themselves engaged in one of those duels which were common in the hand-to-hand strife of that day, from which others might stand aside. The difference of weapons and styles of fence made attack more dangerous than defence was sure, and such combats were quickly done.

        Hassan gave the first wound. Aiming at the weakest approach, he slashed at La Cerda's left, so that the scimitar's keen thin point cut down the length of the upper arm to such depth that the blood spouted high from the wound. Seeing, that he could not endure with that hurt, La Cerda staked all on a downward blow that the Moor was too late to turn. He wore a turban lined with Damascus steel, which was well for him. The fine metal was furrowed deeply, but not cut through. Hassan stumbled forward, and fell at La Cerda's feet.

        The fierce hostile crowds that had paused a moment to watch the bout closed in an instant rush to rescue or make an end. Behind them, Del Monte, with a score of knights at his side, charged forward in a rush that regained the wall. The corsairs perished or fled, their inspiration ended with Hassan's fall, but not till they had borne him safely away. In another hour, he was again in control, with no more hurt than a bruised head, and a turban to be repaired.

        But Del Monte had bent his knee by a dying man. The arm might have been staunched, and would have proved less than a fatal wound, but La Cerda had taken another thrust from a nameless hand.

        Del Monte heard talk that La Cerda had cut down the Moorish leader, so that it was likely that he was dead. It was certain that his valour, and Hassan's fall had held back the tide of attack, giving Del Monte time to arrive.

        He would have shriven him, seeing him to be close to death. "You have done well," he said, "for the Cross of Christ, and if you are sped now, as you must know that you are, it is such a death as must give pleasure to God. Have you aught you would now confess? Have you worldly charge that I can make mine, to secure your peace?"

        La Cerda spoke from a fluctuant mind, and his voice was low.

        "I would have your word," he said, "- for the Commanders will listen to you when the Council meets - I would have your word that he shall do me no further despite."

        "If I understand what you mean," Del Monte replied, "as I will not pretend in another way, it is that which is lightly sworn, for the Grand Master will give you honour for what you have done this day, as it is his nature to do."

        "I will take your oath," La Cerda replied to that, "though as to what the Grand Master would be likely to do, I should say you mis-deem, for he has a venom which will not stay at the gates of death. . . . But I will die content that I have your oath that he shall do me no more despite, either against her, or him who has sheltered her from his bitter hate."

        The words were slow and faint, so that Del Monte must bend to hear. As he caught them, he was perplexed with a doubt that he had been taken to swear something more and different from that which he had supposed to be in La Cerda's mind.

        So he would have said, or at least that he must be better informed on that which he was expected to do, but he saw that he spoke, if not to a dead man, to one who had become deaf to all earthly words.

        "It is the death," he said, "of a good and most misfortunate knight." He made .he sign over his breast which the devils fear, and turned to order a strife which was not yet done, though its issue was no longer in doubt.

CHAPTER IX

        "HE shall be buried," the Grand Master said, "with all the honour his deeds deserve, for it was a most valorous act to so stand his ground when the line sagged, and against one of Hassan's repute, he having, as we may say, but one arm.

        "I have a confident hope that God allowed him thus to assoil his soul, putting aside the feeble counsel he gave before, which came, as I suppose, from the lecherous life which he then led, by which devils had entrance to whisper behind his ear. But we may hope that he had also renounced that lechery from his soul, its cause having been vanished away."

        He said this in Sir Oliver's room, Del Monte also being there. He was exultant at the great success of the last day, for if they had to provide for the burial of two hundred who had been slain, including such knights as it was pity to lose, yet the attack had been thrown back upon every side, and with such loss that the Turks might not be over-quick to attempt it a second time. It was talked that, including those who had been drowned from the boats, their loss was not far short of four thousand men, which may be hard to believe; but if we suppose it to include such as would soon be healed for another bout, we may say that it is no more than may be the lot of those who set flesh against stubborn stone, if it be defended well from above.

        The Grand Master spoke less as one expecting reply, than as giving judgement over the dead, but Del Monte was a man of plain words, though not contentious of mood, and he would make it clear that he did not agree.

        "You are right," he said, "as to half, and perhaps more. But as to St. Elmo, and the counsel he gave, I would advise, if you will not take it amiss, that there should be no such words over his tomb, if you should have occasion to speak in a public way when our brothers are laid to rest. For there are many who hold that he said no more than a good knight should, giving honest counsel of war; and he has shown by his end that he did not speak from any faintness of heart, as was said by some at that time.

        "And as to putting lechery from his soul, it is between God and him now, and there is no need to say more; except only this, that as he died he made his appeal to me, that I should speak on his part, if you should seek to do him further despite.

        "That I said you would never practise to do, and so I lightly swore that I would take his part in such case; but if I should prove to be in error in that, then, by the high Passion of God, I will not be dumb.

        "Yet I will say that at the time I swore I did not clearly perceive (hearing but the faint words of a dying man) that his thoughts were on her whom you supposed he had put aside, his petition being made for the wanton who fled away, and for one (as I understood) who had sheltered her from the law's pursuit."

        The Grand Master listened to this with a look in which resentment followed surprise, but he controlled himself as a smaller man would have been less able to do.

        "Del Monte," he said, "we will have no quarrel for this, and on a day when Heaven's mercy has blessed our arms. La Cerda's soul is with God, and its judgement His, and we have our own, which are still to save. But having sworn such an oath to maintain his part, I will say that you have spoken knightly and well, though it may have been little honour to me. Nor would I be wroth at honest words which are spoken for me to hear, knowing that worse are said when I am further away, by those who are worthy of less esteem. . . . And as to the wanton who could so corrupt the soul of a knight of God, I will go so far as to hope she may not be found. But if she be, I will do justice without reprieve, thinking only of the high office I hold, and neither to favour the living, nor to heed the pleas of the dead."

        Having said this, he went out, being more deeply moved even than his words showed, for he thought at times that he was hated by all, and was less than sure that he had such support of God as should make him deaf to the contemning voices of men.

        Sir Oliver looked after him, and spoke with a friend's voice.

        "I would that he were not so deeply stirred as he often is, for he is not young" (La Valette was sixty-eight at this time), "and he spends his strength in too free a way. He is wrong at times, as we may be tempted to think, but I suppose that he was sent by God to support this hour, and he lives for Malta alone."

        "You are his good friend," Del Monte replied, "and have spoken nothing to which I do not agree. . . I will tell you this, that I was, as it were, trapped to the oath I gave, from which I cannot think that I am therefore absolved, for I do not conclude that La Cerda meant to trap me at all. But he thought of a woman he loved, as a man will at the gates of death, and St. Elmo was in my mind."

        "So I have no doubt that it was; yet, if you will heed my guess, the woman of whom you speak, as she is not one to deserve a love of a constant kind, so she did not have it from him. It was pride that stirred, rather than love, in a dying man. It was, in your own word, which I take for his, that the Grand Master should not do him further despite."

        Del Monte did not dispute that. He said: "Well, there was one hope the Grand Master had, with which we may both accord. It will be well that she be not found."

        It was at this time that Francisco was with Venetia in his rock-hewn cell, and they talked of La Cerda's death. It was a joy to her which she knew she must not show. She had contrived a tear, which may have been slower to fall, knowing that there were no more of its kind to come.

        Francisco sat by her couch, and a soft hand fell on his wrist, as though by an idle chance, and was not taken away.

        "I cannot grieve," she said, "as I should, having been so friended by you."

        Francisco kissed her hand for so kind a word.

        His fingers moved on her arm, and were sharply withdrawn, for he had thrilled to a sudden passion at which he feared, lest his knighthood be brought to shame. Yet La Cerda's death had been joy to him, with the birth of a better hope than he had been able to feel before. It was a hope he could not obtrude in this moment of natural grief. . . . But at a near day. . . . When this siege would be done, as it soon might (how many more boats must be first sunk? What a slaughter it must have been to a nearer view!) and when people would come and go in a free way, so that she could be removed without fear - or perhaps sooner than that - he had eager, impatient dreams, over which honour shone, an unclouded star. . . .

        An hour later, when they were talking still, between silences which were more pregnant than words, he was roused by Captain Antonio's voice. He stood discreetly without. He said: "Captain, the Grand Master is nearly here. I suppose I am not to hold him at bay?"

        Francisco went out with an elation that he found hard to conceal beneath the cloaks of shyness and pride, for he knew that the Grand Master must be coming to inspect the battery which had worked such havoc the day before, and perhaps to give him some tangible honour, or more certain praise for the part which he had been able to play.

        He did not meet the Grand Master alone, for Sir Oliver Starkey was there; and three other Commanders of the Order; and a file behind of the gay-uniformed Castle Guards showed that the visit was of an official sort. There was one other that Francisco had not expected to see, for Sir Oliver brought Angelica at his side.

        "You shall come," he said; "for it must be pleasure to hear that your cousin will have a merited praise, and to him alike to know that you hear it said."

        Angelica would have preferred to have kept away, but she had been alert that Sir Oliver should have no guess that Francisco and she were estranged, lest he should guess further toward the cause, and the same caution had kept her dumb now, being unable to think of a plausible pretext that she would not be glad to be there.

        The Grand Master was generous in his praise, and particular in the inspection he made. He must see not only the Santa Martha's guns, by which the boats had been overset, but the ways in which the battery had been made strong, beyond the thought of its first design.

        "I had no purpose in this," he was frank to say, "beyond to here establish guns of such range that they would command the boom which they overlook. But you have brought guns of a greater range, and made it an outwork of solid strength, so that both harbour and castle are more secure; and, beyond that, you have been able to strike in a vital way from where they thought we had no such fangs. . . . I marvel that it had not been betrayed before now, for there is little they do not learn."

        Francisco must answer that with explanation of the care with which he had chosen those who must handle the battery guns, and the discipline which made spying hard, and the Grand Master approved again.

        "You are of your Uncle's blood," he said, "and it is pleasure to know that it does not fail. For it draws the venom of death if we can feel that we live again in those that are of a near blood." He sighed, as he spoke, from a private grief, having had his own son (or nephew as he must be called by the etiquette which the Statute of De L'Isle Adam required, and which he had himself been stern to enforce, since he had come to his present power) killed but a few days before, which may be held to show that he had been less austere in his younger days than he now was; but he said nothing of that.

        He asked how the guns with which the battery had been first supplied would be put to use, and gave praise again when he was shown that preparations to mount them at a new angle were well advanced.

        "By which time," Sir Oliver said, "I must make allotment of further men for this post. Can you give good shelter to such?"

        Francisco said there need be no doubt about that, and the Grand Master, who was ever one to see all, to the last item there was, must inspect the excavations in which men might crouch secure against hostile shot, when they were not working the guns.

        Venetia heard the voices without, which approached her cell. She could tell they were looking into that which Captain Antonio had, being next to hers. She was in her bed at this time, being the sole one that the cell held, for Francisco would lie on the floor. There she would be most of these days, having no purpose for which to rise. She had lain as they had talked for the last hour, with Francisco on a stool at her side.

        Now she looked round in a sudden fear. Was there no place where she could hide from intruding eyes? She sprang out to the floor. As to clothes, she could have had more on, and not much. She ran round, like a trapped rat, seeking a hole that was not there. She heard Captain Antonio's voice without: "There is naught to be seen here, it is like to mine." She stood in the midst of the floor, not daring to move. Was the danger past?

        She heard a more austere voice, being that of the Grand Master, though that was more than she knew. "But the angle should be sharper than that, if it is to keep out a fragment of flying stone. Now you observe here - "

        Footsteps approached round the bend.

        For once Venetia did not know what to do. She stood still.

        The Grand Master stopped, as must those behind, who could see less. He may be excused that there was a moment when amazement had made him dumb.

        He came from the sun to a cell that was dimly lit, and may have wondered at first if he could be deceived by the sudden gloom. But as his eyes adjusted themselves he became assured that he looked at a woman whose body, supple and young, was reserved from sight by no more than a short shift, and a shawl of price, blue and broidered with gold, that was round her neck as a frame for a pale-gold head.

        "Oliver," he said, "what in the fiend's name do we find here?"

        The Grand Master did not suppose that Sir Oliver had any special knowledge of this. He simply appealed to him for any information that he required; as it was his habit to do.

        Had he not been directly asked, Sir Oliver might have kept still, and the Grand Master discovered no more than that Francisco kept a wanton within his cell. That might have been trouble enough, but it could not have gone deep or far after the service he had just done, for he was not bound by the Order's vows.

        But, being so addressed, Sir Oliver made explicit reply: "As I think, it is she who is sought for the steward's death."

        "It is shrewdly guessed." The Grand Master had advanced into the cell by this time, and it was half filled by those who crowded behind. He looked round to ask in a sharp voice: "Don Francisco, will you explain?"

        Francisco had been at the rear of the group, and, as those of better right followed the Grand Master into the cell, Angelica was left at his side. She knew what was to come some seconds before the Grand Master spoke, for it was what she had been fearing to see. For where else could he have hidden the girl, as she had no doubt he had done?

        She had watched Antonio turn La Valette adroitly to his own cell, and then his futile effort to prevent the entrance of that before which they stood. At the moment, all other thoughts were swept back by that of the danger in which Francisco lay.

        Standing as though dazed, to await that which he had no power to control, he heard her voice, low and intense, at his side: "Francis, will you not go? There is yet time."

        Antonio spoke at his other hand. "There is a boat under the quay, at the hither steps." It was a provision he had made for such a moment as this, though he had said no word of it before.

        And it was clearly a chance. There were none around but the Grand Master's Guards, who surely would not oppose his way, and some of his own men. If he could reach the boat, he might row round to some part of the island which was still in Maltese hands. With the help of gold, of which he carried a full pouch. . . . Antonio would have said that a slender chance is much better than none.

        There was a moment during which Francisco was unresolved, though it is unlikely that he would have fled, being of too high a pride not to defend that which he had thought fitting to do. But while he paused, he heard Venetia's voice - a cool, insolent voice - and his resolution was made. "I will not leave her," he said, "having done nothing beyond my right."

        Venetia had not left it to Francisco to give the Grand Master reply. In that pause of silence she had seen that she was cornered beyond retreat, and her courage rose to the audacity which (as she thought) the occasion required.

        "If you will know who I am," she said, "I am here to ask. I am La Cerda's amie, as you suppose. I was his who died for your cause in the last day. Would you seek to shame me for that? Is it knightly done, that you do not retire when you see me as I now am?"

        Francisco had come forward by this. He faced the Grand Master in the pride of youth and a foolish love, and was neither abashed nor afraid.

        "There is not much to explain. I gave shelter to one who came to me in a great need, he who should have been her shield having been jailed for a cause which I do not know. If I may say it with great respect, I am not of the High Order of which you are Head, nor am I under its vows, but I have done in this as my own honour required (or as I so held); and for this you may hold me excused the more if I have been of some service to you, as you have graciously said in the last hour."

        The Grand Master heard them both, but did not directly reply. He looked round the narrow cell, and its meaning did not seem doubtful to him, seeing what she had been, and what she was to his own eyes. He saw that the cell had no exit, except that through which they had come. He said to her: "You will have time to be more seemly attired for this hour, and for walking abroad, but you must do it with speed. You are charged with a man's death, and you must first answer to that."

        He turned, and those who were there withdrew before him out of the cell, so that Venetia was left alone. He placed two of his guards at the entrance, to make arrest when she should come out. "You will give her," he said, "to the Provost-Marshal's hands, letting her have commerce with none till you have delivered her thus, she being charged with a public crime."

        He walked away with no further word till he mounted the castle stairs, letting those follow who would. Then he turned to say: "Oliver, I would be alone. We will talk of this at a later hour."

        He saw that he was alone already, except that Sir Oliver had come closely behind, and there were two guards who had followed to the foot of the stair, as their duty was. He went on to his own room, which he still kept for his official affairs, though his lodging was in the town.

CHAPTER X

        ANGELICA, with misery at her cousin's peril warring with other feelings (but with a bright colour in none), lingered at his side, unsure that he wished her there, but reluctant to go. Antonio stood his ground alike, thinking that he saw what must be done, and of a resolute purpose to make it clear.

        Francisco stood with no thought now of the flight which Antonio would have urged. His irresolution was of another sort. How could he aid her most? Should he go to her now, to take counsel while there was time? He was unsure whether the guards who stood waiting to make her arrest would regard it as within their duty to bar his way, and he might well hesitate to incur the humiliation of refusal or to attempt a violent entrance.

        Antonio, knowing his own mind better than the others knew theirs, was the first to speak.

        "If you will take advice from one who has seen more of the ways of men than you have had leisure to do, and can observe where you stand, as has ever seemed to be somewhat beyond your sight, you will use a time which may not be long. You should be away in this hour."

        The words brought decision to Francisco's mind, or perhaps rather consciousness of decision already made.

        "You may see well," he replied, "with your eyes, but they are not mine. I will neither desert her part at this need, nor will I fly as one pleading a guilt which I do not own. . . . And I may be in less danger than you suppose, for you must see that the Grand Master has passed me by, though he has made her arrest, he being silenced by what I said."

        "I have observed you," Antonio answered to that, "to be as guileless as any man I have met, and as no woman could ever be; but, if you can think that, you are more innocent than I had concluded before. He owes you thanks for these guns, and for what they did. He will neither forget that, nor will it turn him aside from the hard methods of war. He will act by the process the law provides, without dally or haste, and if you should use the time to be quickly gone, I would not say that he would be overmuch grieved. But in her case there was process already out, and her arrest is the routine of the law. . . . And he may be the more content that you go, having her safely within the bag. . . . Here is Don Garcio, who was once your friend. He may know more of these matters than we, being in Sir Oliver's grace as few are. You can ask him, if you will, and see whether we do not counsel alike."

        Francisco must look at his cousin when this was said, and met troubled eyes.

        "Francis," she said, "I would not urge you to flee, if you think it shame, but I am in a great fear. There was proclamation of death against who should do what you cannot deny, and it was said to be without favour to any, of whatever degree. It is time of war, and the Grand Master can be a most hard, though I would not say that he is a pitiless man."

        "Be he as hard as he may," Francisco replied, "he has foes enough over the wall, without making others of those who have done such service as I. . . . I would say that it is counsel of cowards, if you will not take it amiss. But we may urge our friends to that which our honour would not allow."

        "Then," Antonio replied, "if you call me coward, I will say no more, beyond this. You may go in the next hour, or you will be dead in a week. So in that space you must get all the further honour your life will know."

        "That you are wrong in that," Francisco replied, with more confidence than he had spoken before, "I would wager all you could lose, except that, if the loss were mine, I might lack occasion to pay. But, in a word, I will stay here, as my duty is. Only, I will leave you in charge for a short time, for I will see the Provost-Marshal, that she be lodged as her station requires, and have such comforts as gold will buy."

        "You may spare your legs," Antonio replied, "for a better cause. For I can tell you that the Provost-Marshal has not so base an apartment to give, but it would be better than was the cellar from which she came."

        Angelica did not understand all the implications of this remark, not being aware that Venetia had been born in the next Genoese street to that in which Captain Antonio made his home, but she felt that there was another beside herself who would not have valued Venetia at her own price, at which she was not displeased. She felt also that Francisco was taking the course which honour required, and, if that were so, it must not be her part to turn him aside for any peril it had.

        She saw too that dignity and discretion (for even he must see that his friends were few enough now!) might be insufficient to restrain her cousin's resentment at Antonio's contemptuous words, and was the quicker to speak, that she might turn his mind in another way.

        "Francis, I would not ask you to play the coward, as I think you know. But will you assent that I see Sir Oliver now, and learn all I can of what the Grand Master will be likely to do? And I will meet you again, and you could then resolve how it may be avoided, or else met."

        "Yes," he said, though with less grace than he might, "I will thank you for that, if it can be readily learned, for it will be of avail to know. . . . Can you say a word beyond that, that Venetia be not too straitly confined, she having done that which her honour required, and no more?"

        There was a pause during which she was not sure what her answer would be. Venetia's honour? She did not think its requirements could be much, at whatever pass. Much less than even a steward's blood should be spilled to save. Look where she was now! But then she laughed in her sudden way: "Yes. I will say that, if you so desire." She turned abruptly, seeing that Venetia was coming out, whom she was not anxious to meet.

        Francisco, when he cast his thoughts in that way at a later hour, was content to feel that the shadow which had lain between his cousin and him was somewhat lifted aside. He associated it vaguely with his having taken Venetia under his protection, which it had been necessary to conceal, even from her. But if she had not known, nor perhaps guessed, till now, could it be that? Then he remembered Angelica's reproach that he had put her in such a position that she had been obliged to appear as his mistress in La Cerda's eyes, lest there should have been more mischief than that. . . . It had been as they came down the stairs that the quarrel had reached its head, though it had been latent before. Its root had lain in his reproaches against herself that she had come in a disguise that he thought shame to the name she bore. . . . Yet he saw that her honour stood, and that she had maintained it somewhat more firmly than he could be said to have done with his to that hour. He saw also that she had shown more loyalty to himself than he had to her (though he would never have loitered to reach her side, had she been in peril that he could aid, as he may have failed to observe), and these were thoughts that he did not like. They abased his pride. He had been grave to rebuke what he thought the unseemly prank that had brought her there, and it was he who was fallen into the pit, while she walked cool and secure.

        Yet he was glad to feel that the cloud between them was less, though it had not gone. When he thought of that, he realised, by instinct's rather than logic's aid, that Venetia was the cause, and that she was one whom Angelica was never likely to love. In fact, he must make a choice. Sooner or later, it would come to that, more definitely than now. He did not doubt what the choice would be, for Venetia filled his thoughts, and every passionate hope was centred upon her sharp gay wit, her courageous conduct of life, and the grace of her pale-gold head; but the thought gave him no joy. For, by a paradox which is frequent in the interchanges of human life, as Angelica had become less to him, she had become more. But Venetia was the madonna who filled his dreams.

        Turning from these thoughts to his own peril (if such it were), he found that he could face it with less fear than it may have seemed to deserve. Every passion must thrive at the cost of others, which dwindle that it may swell. He thought of what he had done, and could see little to blame, and even less to regret. The Grand Master's proclamation might threaten a felon's fate, but why should such things be proclaimed? Bitter anger and pride strengthened him to fight fear, and to meet any accusation which might be made with a bold front. Had he not sunk the boats which would else have landed those who might have won the centre of the Sanglea, even had St. Michael's fort still flown the eight-pointed cross, which was less than sure? And it had been something more than the competence which every battery commander may be expected to show, that his guns be fired at the best time, and pointed aright. It was through himself alone that there had been guns there of range sufficient to fire across the whole length of the Christian defence on the harbour-front. And his reward was no more than this! He felt that he would not lack words in his own relief, though he was not always known for a fluent tongue. If he had played a boy's part, it seemed that it would be met in a man's way.

        He had these thoughts as he walked back from the common jail in the Bourg, where Venetia had been confined. He had found gold to be as potent there as it ever is, whether in palace or slum; though he had paid out less than he would, having had the use of Antonio's wisdom before he went.

        For the little captain had not spared his advice, though he thought it to be a fool's errand which Francisco pursued. "You will do less with ten crowns of gold," he had said, "if you pay them down, than if you give one, and show other four which are to be earned in a settled way. But with gold enough that is kept in sight but not pouched, you could put her even to the Grand Master's bed, so that he must sleep on the floor."

        Francisco may have gained less for Venetia than for his own peace; for she knew enough of jails on their inner side to have got most that she would, short perhaps of the master-key, but she would have paid in a coin which he would not have been quick to guess; as to which she would have said that it left her as rich as she was before, which we may find to be true enough, if we consider it well.

        Francisco was not overlong abroad, but he found that Angelica had come and gone when he got back, having had no more to say than she could ask Antonio to report to him.

CHAPTER XI

        "I MUST know," Angelica said, "in what danger my cousin lies, for I can have no peace till I do."

        Sir Oliver did not resent the words or manner of this address, which would have been unfitting from whom she pretended to be, and was not much better from whom she was as they both knew, for the sharp anxiety in her tone was easy for him to hear, and his reply was kinder than may be plain in the written word.

        "Then you must know something I cannot tell, for there is nothing resolved. But I tell you all that I may when I say that the Grand Master is agreed that he will do nothing alone. There is Council called for the last hour of the day, when the Commanders will consider your cousin's case."

        "Then he can be under no restraint till that hour?"

Sir Oliver frowned a little at a question which he thought should not have been asked, and the more so if it were not done in an idle way.

        "Why do you ask? It is that which you should be able to resolve in your own mind, without assurance from me."

        "I ask because I would have it clear that he will remain of his own will, as having done nothing which should be dispraised in a just mind."

        "Can you think that?"

        "It is not what I think that can be of any account. It is for him I would speak. He is resolved that he will not go, as he has time to do."

        "Can you say where?"

        "No. But there are those who could. Of whom he is one."

        "You have learnt this from him?"

        "There are things I have heard, and I think there are none that I may not say, or at least to you, so that I mention no name but his. He could have gone if he would."

        "Well, I will not ask where, which is not easy to see. But I will say that I think him wise. . . . Yet, when I say that, you must not build on it too much, for this is a matter on which I shall have no warrant to deal. It is over me.

        "I should be slow to say that. You have a great power."

        "You may call it more than it is. And against that which the Council resolve it is nothing at all."

        "But you will be there."

        "I shall be one among ten or twelve, and there will be some who can speak with more weight than I."

        "It is what I will not believe."

        "Well, I have said as much as I should. I will not forecast the Council's resolve, nor disclose what my part may be to one who (I suppose) would soon tell it to him. If he remain (as I have said that he should, for it is that, as I think, that his honour needs), he shall have no warrant from me."

        "Then I will ask no more at this time, except this, which I have promised to do. Will the woman be so confined that she will have no hardship or shame till her trial come?"

        Sir Oliver looked at her with eyes which were less grave than before. "Do you speak as a parrot does, or are you grieving for her?"

        "It is a promise I gave. I have said that before. But I will say of myself that I do not think she has done very much wrong; or, at least, it is not for that which she has done wrong that she is pursued, but for that which she would not do, and which she denied (as she must) with a dagger's point. And for one placed as she says she was, I should call it a good way."

        "You speak well for one whom I can still see that you do not love. But I will answer you in two words.

        "The first is this. She will be fairly tried, and she will be kept in sufficient honour till then (even if she have not had the help of your cousin's gold, which is easy to guess); and this is not an Italian town.

        "And the second is this. I know not how the man died, about which it is right, as you must allow, that a proper inquest be made; but the woman is one who will work mischief until she have a knife in her own ribs, for which I should say she is no less fit than you would have me think that the steward was. She will find trouble as a wet sponge gathers the dirt.

        "But you shall not say that you have asked a small thing which I would not do. You shall indite a note to the Provost-Marshal from me which I think he will not contemn."

        Having obtained all that she could, Angelica went without loss of time to tell Francisco of that, and may have been less than pleased to find that he was away, but she had seen that Captain

Antonio was his friend sufficiently for her to leave a message with him.

        "You can tell him," she said, "that the case is one which the Grand Master will not decide on the power he has, as he might do if he were moved by wrathful resolve (for the proclamation, as I understand, gives him power enough, it being a martial time, even to the taking of life), but there will be Council held at the last hour of the day, when there will be debate on what Don Francisco has done. I suppose (though I have no warrant to say) that they will look on the good deed as well as that which they must call by another name, and they should see that the first is of greater weight."

        "So it may be that they should," the little Captain agreed, "but do you think that they will? There will be those who will contend that a proclamation so strait and clear cannot be flouted in time of war, lest it be said that there is no rule over those who do well in the field, on which any army would break apart."

        "There will be foolish talk," Angelica replied. "That is sure. But we hope that better words will prevail."

        "So we will. And so it may be, if you have made Sir Oliver friend."

        "He may be of good will. But he says that in this he has little power. We are to build nothing on him."

        "Well, I have given my counsel before. I must hope I am shown wrong. . . . Is that all you would have me say?"

        "Except that I have obtained that the Provost-Marshal shall have written request that she shall be lodged in a seemly way until the trial is due."

        "In a seemly way? I should say that that would not be far from the filth of the middle street."

        "That was not what I meant, as I think you know."

        "So I do. It is strange how a flower-like face will entrap those who are young, even though it may bring nothing to them."

        Angelica laughed at that, though laughter was not near to her heart, for the thought that she had been seduced by Venetia's face to beg a soft lodging for her was a jest which she could not miss.

        But when Captain Antonio went on: "Now a score of years will show her better for what she is, so that it will be a book that the young can read," she felt the desire to take the part of one whom she did not love which Sir Oliver had noticed an hour before.

        "That," she said, "may be true of all whom God makes, and not only of her. But it may also be that His thought is more surely shown in the freshness of youth than in later years, when the blinds are down, and twilight is on the soul."

        "Well," he said, "you take her part, and you may know why, at which I will guess no more."

        She thought of why it could be, which had not been clear to herself, and spoke the answer aloud, as she should have been too guarded to do: "It is, as I suppose, that we are caught alike in a world of men." But her voice fell on the last word, as she became sharply aware of the implication of what she said.

        She looked at Captain Antonio in a cool way, which it was not easy to do, and found that he was not looking at her. There was a silence the meaning of which was plain for her to guess, but which she was resolved should be broken by him, that she might judge what he knew, and how he would be likely to act thereon.

        There came to both their minds (as they could not know, except each for one) a vision of night and a sloping deck, and of two who met in the light of a lantern that hung aloft. The salt water dripped from her doublet's folds: there was a cold wind at her back: and overhead were a few stars.

        Then he spoke, and still without looking her way: "It is the gain of those who will wander much that they see things that are strange to tell, or which some would doubt, though they might be sworn in the Virgin's name. And we must see things at times that we do not speak at a later hour."

        She considered this, and it was of her nature to take his word in the best way.

        "It is knightly said," she replied, "as I should have thought that you would," at which he was well pleased, having some vanity of his own, which was not willing to think himself less than were those of a knight's degree, though he knew that most men would give him a smaller sum.

        She went away with the assurance that what she had been careless to show would not be published abroad, and she left a much-puzzled man.

        "We see much," he reflected, meaning they who wander on the face of the world, "but the enigmas are hard to rede."

        He thought of her as he had seen her first, and of what she had done since to his own sight, and of the position she had come to hold, which was plain to all, at Sir Oliver's side, as one to whom he gave trust, and whom he would yet send on missions from which she might not return.

        Why had she come to this peril in such a dress? What was the place she now held, either as woman or man? Was her sex known, and if so to how many, and who were they? What had she been to Don Francisco, or was she now? He had come on a strange vision of life, and its focus was changed by a word, but it was still blurred.

        "And why," he thought, "she should be friend to that slut, I see less than before. Is it for the reason she gave? That they are two women snared in a world of men?" Well, so he must think, if it could be solved in no better way. But Angelica did not walk as one snared, but rather, though in a quiet style, as one cool and serene. And though Venetia might be closed in a world of men, he did not think it to be of that she would make complaint, but rather that they were not of a more infidel blood when they looked her way.

CHAPTER XII

        THE High Council of the Commanders of the Order of the Knights of St. John met in a formal style, as they had done when they had debated St. Elmo's fate, in the same hall, that was rich and high and of noble size, and furnished in the latest Italian style, so that a synod of cardinals would not have called it a mean place in which to debate the mysteries of the Faith, or the chastising of rebel lands.

        But the Grand Master, looking round, thought not of grandeur or pride, seeing the empty places of those who had been there but a month before.

        Where was Miranda now? De Broglio? D'Egueras? Medrano? Montserrat? Where a dozen more who had died on St. Elmo's walls? Where Zanoguerra, who had commanded the waterfront of the Sanglea, and died at the moment when he had flung backward the last attack? Where La Cerda, the one man who had dared to assert opinion against his own? They were surely with God, having shed their blood to His and the Order's praise, and in the cause of all Christian lands. He did not doubt nor regret, but he saw how high St. Elmo's cost had been in his greatest names.

        As to those who had fallen in the storming attack of the last day, he had made oration that afternoon over their flag-draped biers, and among them La Cerda's had not been the least of honour, as he had told himself in a stubborn but honest mind, and with the consciousness that we are all but a poor dust before the Infinite God, which must be felt by all Christian men, as they bend over the dead. . . .

        There were others absent besides the dead - knights who excused themselves for weariness or for wounds, or that they must stand to a threatened post; and those who came, being a poor dozen at best, had the look of men who would have welcomed rest more than debate. Yet they had the aspect of stern and resolute men, with will and strength to endure, though the youth of most was a past day.

        "Brothers," the Grand Master said, having made but a short prayer, as the time required, "I have called you here for a simple cause, and one, I hope, which may be quickly resolved.

        "It is known to all, for it was debated before, that the Chevalier La Cerda brought to this place, in contempt of his own vows and to the scandal of Christian faith, a certain woman whom he had hidden away in his hired house when he was appointed to St. Elmo's defence.

        "This woman, as was likely to be, became a fountain of lust and crime, so that a man was soon slain by her hand, and she fled, to make mischief in new resorts.

        "I desire to say little of her, she being now laid by the heels, that she may be justly tried, as our custom is: nor would I have mentioned the Chevalier La Cerda as so debased, he being now dead in a better way, except that the tree which springs from this seed of hell has fruited again, with an evil which is not easy to mend.

        "When this woman fled, there was proclamation made, by our common resolve, that none should give her cover to cheat the law, except at the pain of his own life, which should be forfeit therefor, and this alike were he high or low, with lack of favour to all.

        "Now it was laid bare to my own eyes, and to others who are now here, that she was so hidden away by one who would not have been soon suspect, he being younger than most, of good name and blood, and being free from the lewd report to which some of our youth will fall when they are not under the Order's vows. I mean, as you mostly know, the youth, Don Francisco, who is nephew to our late brother, the Commander Don Manuel, who so lately died.

        "Don Manuel was my friend for fifty years, or but little less to the time he died, and he served our Order as few, under the favour of God, have been permitted to do. Don Francisco alike, seeming to be of his uncle's complexion in this, has done good service to Malta's cause, it being due to him, both in design and control, that the boats of the Turks were sunk, with a loss to them which I need not say.

        "That is a matter for which we might give reward with a free hand, either of gold (but that would be naught to him for he does not lack) or in honour that he might put at a higher price; but how can we reward one whom we must apprehend, and put to a quick death, or have it said that we deal justice with partial scales?"

        Having put the issue thus, the Grand Master sat down without suggesting a decision he would prefer. He let others speak, which all were not ready to do.

        Del Monte sat silently await, conceiving that he was bound by his oath, not as having opinion himself, but as one holding a brief to speak the mind of a dead man, as he must suppose that he would have wished him to do. He waited to hear others first, that he might know what it might be necessary for him to say.

        A Commander with a narrow ascetic face, and bright, piercing eyes under penthouse brows, whose name may be left aside, was the first to speak: "There is no choice that I see, but the law must perform its part. For we must observe that this was not an outrage of sudden blood, but that Don Francisco has defied both the law and the special proclamation we made, in a mood of sustained contempt, which is too much to condone in a time of war, when discipline must not fail."

        His words were followed by comment of sundry sorts, showing that the Commanders might not be lightly agreed.

        For one said: "Yet it was a fault of youth, and of the hot blood that pertains thereto. I say it should not be too hardly judged, he having done the great service he has."

        And another: "It is matter to mourn, as is all weakness and sin. . . . It should be most straitly proved that she was hidden of his device, and not secretly there. Yet must the law stand at the last, if it be so sustained. We must pluck forth the offending eye, though the flesh shrink in its human way."

        And a third: "It may be observed that Don Francisco is not sworn to the Order's rule, either as serving-brother or knight, and his fault is the less for that."

        To which another rejoined: "But that is not the issue with which we deal. He is not charged that he has made lecherous use of the quarters where he is placed, but that he has hidden one whom the law required."

        And a fifth agreed: "It was a risk he took, having been warned in a plain way. What can he object, being caught?"

        But after that there was a voice of dissent: "It is the temptress who should feel stripes, rather than those whom she brings to sin, and that the more when they are knights who will give their blood for our cause."

        And the seventh voice was that of one who agreed: "May we not say that it is shed too greatly by heathen hands for us to spill at this time? That it can be spent in a better way, as such knights are not unwilling to do?"

        Del Monte felt that he had heard enough to judge what would be best to say, and that it would be wiser to intervene before differences had become too sharply shown for their advocates to accord with a ready will.

        "Brothers," he said, "you will bear with me when I say that I speak for one who would be mostly concerned, but that he is now dead, and it is his dying charge that I give you now. He hewed Hassan down at his life's cost, when he was over the fosse, and if it be said that but for him I should have lost the Sanglea (excepting only St. Michael's fort) I would call it less than a lie. That being so, I am the more bold to ask you to hear me now.

        "As to the woman, she must be tried, as we may lightly agree, and I suppose that La Cerda himself would not have cavilled at that."

        "I can tell you," Sir Oliver interposed, "that it was no less than his urgent will that she should be tried, and (as he thought) absolved thereby of the steward's death. . . . And, as I suppose, she would not have fled, but that she was seized with fear when she heard that he was himself held, so that he would not be free to support her part."

        "That," Del Monte replied, "was how I thought it to be. And had he not been slain, we may say that she would have come forth by his will, and there had been better end than is threatened now. . . . She must be fairly tried. There is no issue on that. For there must be justice done to the dead, as well as to those who still live, and no less that he who died was suspect, and of mean degree.

        "But when we come to the part which Don Francisco has played, of which we know less, as it may have been either at his own will, or as one who would aid a friend - "

        "The wanton," the Grand Master said, "was in the single chamber he used. You must face that." He did not speak in a hostile way, but as one sitting above, who would point out that which Del Monte's logic must overcome.

        "So I agree," Del Monte replied. "We know not how little it meant, nor how much, and I submit that if we leave it unprobed we may show wisdom in that. . . . But there is one thing you should know, that La Cerda, being at point of death, said that to grieve Don Francisco for this would be equal dispite to him, by which you may say, if no more, that he did not think him to be less than a loyal friend."

        "As between themselves," the Grand Master allowed, "it is the best point that you have, and you take it well when you do not urge it too far, for it might break at a higher strain. But this is largely beside the cause which has drawn us here. It is not to La Cerda that Don Francisco must be absolved, nor (as has been said) is he charged with lecherous ways. It is of contempt of law that he stands accused, and can you clear him of that?"

        "I do not know that I can. And if he be tried, and let free, or but lightly rebuked, I do not say that respect of law will be fostered thereby.

        "I may offer better counsel than that, if I propose that we do nothing at all. For while we do naught, none can tell what is to appear on the next day. And few, if any, will surely know but that we may have witness by which we hold him excused, or even that she was exposed by his own will. There will be sundry tales scattered abroad, and none true; and none will be held by discreet men as more than a likely lie.

        "Let us keep this in suspense, and if we drive the Turk from the land at last (to which this is a little thing), then we may review all that Don Francisco has done in another mood, and in the hour of triumph and thanks to God amnesty will seem no more than is timely to give; but if we fail, as we are resolved by the grace of God that we shall not do, then it is all one, and he may better perish by heathen swords than at Christian hands."

        There was a voice that asked: "If we accord to that, how will you secure that he will not openly boast that we fear to enforce the law as against himself? From one who has been so hardy in his contempt, it is no less than a likely thing."

        "As to that," Sir Oliver said, "I can give some manner of pledge; for I can convey warning to him in a private way, and, if he ignore that, he will not be in the case of a pardoned man, but we can make arrest with a good cause, and his death will be on his own head."

        "Is it agreed," the Grand Master asked, "that this matter be put to suspense, to be considered again if the need come, or else not till a further day?"

        There were some who murmured assent, and the rest were still. The Grand Master had his way, as he mostly would, whether for mercy or blood, and Del Monte felt that he had got more than he had forecast, and with fewer words, till La Valette addressed him again:

        "That this woman be fairly tried, and in accordance with the usage in time of war, there should he one who will put her case, as she can be little fitted to do. Will you take this, as you have so well assumed the part of La Cerda's friend, whose mistress she was?"

        There was a short pause, and Del Monte said that he would, though it was plain that he had a poor will. . . .

        The Grand Master left the hall leaning on Sir Oliver's arm, as it was becoming his habit to do.

        "Oliver," he said, "I may have done well or ill, but I lacked heart to bring one who is near of blood to so old a friend to the shame which would have been surely his, for, if he were found guilty of such a fault, though I might grant reprieve of his life, or even find pretext to set him free, it would be a shame that would mark his life; so that he would be debarred from the companionship of this Order in which his Uncle had more honour than most, and it may be from any high trust or command whether with us, or from the hands of his own King.

        "I may grow feeble with age, so that God should cut me off like a rotten branch, as he must at last; but I have a better thought that He will let me endure till the land is free."

        "You should take more rest," Sir Oliver replied; "but I say in this that you have done wisely and well."

CHAPTER XIII

        "DON FRANCISCO," Sir Oliver said, as one who asks that he already knows; "is not easy to guide?"

        "No. He was never that."

        "But it may be done best, if at all, by a woman's hand?"

        "That is not by me."

        "Well, you must choose. For either you must do this, or I will send for him here, and I would prefer to leave it to you."

        "Is he to be expelled with his own consent, or to have time to flee in a secret way? He has said that he will not go."

        "It is not that. He can stay, or I should say that he must, for he would be shamed to desert, having no cause. All that is required is that he shall be secret as to his having kept Venetia as he did, and that he shall make no boast that the Council do not chastise him therefor."

        "There should be few words about that. Is it so condoned?"

        "It is less than that. It is in suspense. Yet if his part be observed with care, it is a sword which will not be likely to fall. But you should make it plain that if he fail on his side it will be his death, and there is none who would aid."

        "It is more than he could have reason to hope. . . . Can you tell me what they are doing to her? For it is what he will expect me to know."

        "She will be tried, as she must; but Del Monte himself will be called her friend."

        "We have to thank you for much."

        "It is not our rule to speak of what is done when the Council meets, but you must not thank me too far. I did less than I saw done."

        "So I must believe, if you say. But I thank you still."

        "I may tell you this, that the Grand Master is your cousin's friend, more than you would lightly believe, for he does not forget that he is of Don Manuel's blood. It will be his fault now, if there be more of this either thought or said, for our minds will turn back to the larger things."

        "There is her trial to come. He will not forget that."

        "That is so. But she is not to be harshly served, beyond what her desert may be shown to be; and I will tell you this for your peace, having watched the world for more years than you have been able to do. When a woman, such as we think her to be, has given all that she can, it is not much, and men will sooner forget than if they had been paid with a grudging hand."

        Angelica considered this, but there was no relief in her eyes.

        "You think," she said, "that she was mistress to him."

        "So I must. I should say that it would be vain to deny, she being caught as she was in their common cell."

        "Yet I am not sure."

        Sir Oliver considered that she knew her cousin better than he, and he had watched the doings of men enough to know that the obvious is not always true.

        He said: "That would be worse.

        "So I think."

        "Then you shall tell him this. He will be free to attend her trial, or rather that he will be required to be there, though his witness may not be called."

        "There is gain in that?"

        "Yes. For there will be exposure of what she was."

        "He has been told something of that, but he will not hear."

        "I would know from whom."

        "From Captain Antonio. It is he who - "

        "Yes. I know. . . . He may have met her before. He is Genoese. I had not thought of that chance."

        "Have I said too much?"

        "You have said nothing to vex your peace. But it is my business to know who are here, lest we harbour spies. . . . Captain Antonio may know much. Yet he is a witness we shall not need.

        "But you may tell Francisco this, putting it as a warning from me. There will be inquisition made as to who she is, and of what repute before she came to La Cerda's care, and on her answers to that vindication may largely depend. If he would be friendly to her, he should inform himself of these matters by all the means that he may, and counsel her that the truth, though it have some stench, will do her less harm than if she be trapped in a damning lie."

        "Can you say how soon the trial will be?"

        "It will be publicly held, in three days from now. That is, if Mustapha give us peace, as I think he will, having wounds to lick. So there should be no losing of time by those who would put her case in the best array."

        Angelica went to tell Francisco what she had learned, and Sir Oliver turned to matters of more moment than this could be (except to those who were most concerned), until Del Monte came to his room at a later hour.

        "Sir John," he said, "has just put that upon me in which I am not skilled, and which is no pleasure to do."

        Sir Oliver smiled. "It seemed a right choice, for you would be advocate, as it appeared, whether you were appointed or no."

        "You heard the reason of that. . . . I must say that it is a jest for which I do not love him the more. . . . But I am not willing to fail in that which I undertake."

        "I am well assured that you will put her defence in the best style."

        "So you would say. But I have seen her an hour ago, and I cannot find that she is hotly accused. She has a likely tale, and no other was there, except he whose talking is done. Must not her tale stand? And, if it do, is she not to be acquitted of right, by the laws of our own Order, or by those of Malta, to which she may be more strictly exposed? Or have you more to bring up in a second line when the battle join?"

        "I will answer freely on that. I should say that her tale is half false, and perhaps more. But that may be beyond proof, and she may bear it out, if she can tell it in a plausible way, which I should call her practised to do.

        "We have no witness, such as you might not suspect, by which we could foil a lie. You can be content about that.

        "But you will not be surprised that we shall probe her as to the character that she professes to bear. You should look to that, if you are thinking to bring her clear."

        "You mean that you have report against her good name to which she must make reply?"

        "We have much."

        "It is not of the sort that she was mistress to those whom she could not wed? She is not to be measured by monkish rule?"

        "It goes beyond that. We shall say that there is no man with whom she would not have lain for a ducat's pay, though it were one that had been twice clipped by the Jews. That is, if she could not have got more."

        Del Monte considered this, and thought he saw a reply.

        "You may say that, if you will. You may call it a groat, and I still protest that it should not help you at all; and so, as it has no part in your case, it should not be said."

        "If you can argue that, I will listen with care."

        "It is simply said. She might have objected for no more cause than that she feared to lose the comforts she had, if La Cerda should suddenly come, and find one in her bed who should not be there. She might have cared no more than that it was not an opportune time, or that she had a pain in her head. Could he therefore rape her of right?

        "I should say that it would be strange logic, and a law which we have not heard before now. If you build on that, I should suppose I shall bring her free."

        "Well, I shall not be irked if you do."

        "But I must still protest that we should not wander so far."

        "Which you can put to those who are appointed to judge, but you will find that they will not hear. For it will be a question of how far she should be believed, and when there are questions asked she may be left with no more than a shaken tale. Do you say that we cannot then weigh whom she is who protests that which it has become easy to doubt?"

        "That might be; but you go too far, if you so forecast before you arrive. I would still ask that, in this case, we may be content to probe that which has happened in Malta here, to which our laws must apply. . . . I had thought that the Grand Master was of a mind to end this with the least words that are needful to speak."

        "I will not dispute about that. I will only say that those who ask overmuch may get less than they had before. . . . But I will be frank to tell you that I have an object in this, for I would show her to Don Francisco for what she is, which he is not anxious to see."

        "And if I could take you there by another road?"

        "I would be content to arrive, without having chosen the way. . . . But I should still tell you that she must be prepared for inquisition upon herself, which we could not avoid. . . . She must give witness herself, if she is to come clear? You will agree upon that?"

        "Yes. She must tell her tale. He having been slain by her bed, and she vanished away, she might be convict if she would not speak. I will allow that."

        "And being put upon oath, she must give her name, and whom she professes to be?"

        "Yes. That is no more than the common use. It is shortly asked, and soon said."

        "And we shall say she is not. We shall give her another name."

        "How can you say that, until you have heard what she will swear?"

        "I mean, if she say that which La Cerda believed, and which she has told to others, as I can guess."

        "And if she give you a true name?"

        "She will be well counselled to that. But it is what she will be reluctant to do."

        "It is what she will."

        "So I supposed, she being guided by you."

        "And if she do that . . .? But I will ask no pledge. I will see you again, when I have taken counsel with her. . . . But I will tell you one thing which you might not suppose. . . . She protests that Don Francisco has been no more than La Cerda's friend, and I think in this she spoke with an open mind. You may consider how far it fits the part in which she is dressed by your own reports."

        "That may be true, though it will not be lightly believed. But I have been told the same by one who would make a good guess, and the truth is what cannot be known except to the two who were alone in that cell. . . . But if I believe, I should not say she had the more honour, but the more wit."

        "Well, I may call Don Francisco's witness on that."

        "Which I must hope that you will not do. It would be to stir that which is now still."

        "Meaning as against him? Well, I must promise naught. We will talk again."

        Del Monte went away with a feeling that he had done more than appeared, for he saw that, if he threatened that he would make Francisco a witness for the defence, he proposed that which Sir Oliver would prefer to avoid. He resolved that he would see Venetia again, for which he must visit the common jail, from which she would not be loosed. But it was not fitting that he should bustle about as though he were a paid tool of the law, and he sent Don Francisco a letter, written in his own hand, proposing that he should come to him, at St. Michael's fort, which he supposed that he would be willing to do.

CHAPTER XIV

        ANGELICA did not go to the battery again, which she was reluctant to do. She sent message to Francisco that she could be found at the noon hour at the inn where they met before.

        She found him there when she arrived, which she might not have done had she been to her own time, which she had been careful to miss, for she had some pride of her own, though it might not be equal to his, and now that she had found that there was no present danger for him, she had space for thoughts of another kind.

        They had come at an hour when there would be few but themselves in the common room, and as he had found a seat in a corner apart, she thought that they would talk there rather than ask for a private place, as though they had secret matters with which to deal.

        Before she spoke of the matters of which he had come to hear, she mentioned one which she meant him to know, and which might be over-thought if it were left.

        "Francis, I should tell you first that Captain Antonio knows what I am."

        He frowned at that, as he replied: "Then how many are there who guess now? How did he learn? Is it not what I have always said, that you should not have come?"

        "You have said enough. . . . We agree there. . . . Yet that I am here may have been useful to you. At least, it has done you no ill. . . . I was caught by a careless word, such as I should not have said. Did he tell you aught?"

        "No. I have not guessed that he knew."

        "Then he keeps faith, as I think. I need not trouble for that."

        "I would that you could go back, being no more shamed than you now are."

        It was a subject which better suited his restless pride than that of which he had come to hear, but it could not be expected that she would look on it in the same way.

        "If you call me shamed, it is what no other would do, and it is a word that you should be last to use to one who is so near of your blood, even if you have no care beyond that."

        He had the grace to take the rebuke, and to go as near to deny his words as he would be likely to do.

        "You took what I said in a wrong way. You have no shame in yourself, as you could not have; and there should be none to say it aloud while I have a sword which is at your call, as I think you know. . . . You may consider that, if I regarded you no more than as one who chanced to be of a kindred blood, I should not fret that your honour walks on so keen an edge, as you must allow that it does now."

        "Well," she said, more mollified by the manner of his reply than she was entirely willing to show, "had I need, I would ask your sword in a quick way, both for a sharp point, and as one that would be bare at the first word, as you need not say. But, till I ask, you may be sure that the need is none."

        "It is so I will practise to think. But I suppose that you had other matter in mind when you asked me here."

        "I have news, which you may call good, Sir Oliver, as I think. having proved our friend, though he will make little of that. The Council met last night, and debated what you had done, or what else they may have supposed from where Venetia was found - "

        "What do you mean when you say that?"

        "What I said. It is plain enough. Is it not a matter which all men will judge in the same way?"

        "They should consider the urgence with which she fled."

        "So they may. Shall we leave that, and come to what they resolved, which it is of more moment to know?"

        "I would only say that her honour should not be mired, while she is charged that she was too constant in its defence."

        "There is no need to tell me. It will all be said at the right time, for Del Monte will undertake her retort."

        "When is the trial to be?"

        "In three days, if we are quiet from further attack. But I would tell you first of yourself."

        "And I am more anxious for her."

        "You will learn all, if you let me speak. As to yourself; the Council agreed after debate that you shall be left clear, if you are silent enough. I suppose that is in reward for the good service you did. Also, the Grand Master proved your friend at the last.

        "But it is to be plain, and I am the one that must tell you this, as speaking in Sir Oliver's place, that there is no more than suspense. There is not pardon at all. And the Council will not endure that their forbearance be talked, or that you make boast, as though they threatened that which they dare not do. And if they are stirred to move, it will be in a merciless way, for they consider that what you did cannot be condoned in a time of war; and if you give them such cause, those who had been your friends will not attempt, or will be feeble to aid you more."

        "Well, it is what you are charged to say. And there must be those I should thank, as I do you. . . . I will be still from no fear. But it is not my way to go boasting abroad. . . . I am content that I did as I have supposed that a knight should. . . . The Grand Master may see that it was his feud with La Cerda by which she fell."

        "So you may think, if you only say it to me; but it may be your death if it enter another ear. Can I avoid dread when you talk in so bold a way?"

        "I will be still as a grave. But will you tell me of her?"

        "Sir Oliver thinks that the charge against her is not so black in itself but that she should come clear, and that Del Monte is appointed to be her friend may be proof that she is not too hotly pursued. But Sir Oliver was urgent that I should warn you of this, for her own good. Her credit may be straightly arraigned, and when she answers of whom she is, and by what road she arrived, it may break her if she be caught in a wrong word."

        "Why should he be doubtful of that? She is not one whose record requires a lie."

        "Well, he is. It is a warning well meant, whether it be needed or no. And if you fail to tell it to her, and she stumble when she is asked, you will be the cause of her grief."

        "Can I see her again? I was told that there would be much trouble in that, so that even gold might not avail."

        "I suppose I could secure that, if I give a good cause. You cannot advise her unless you do."

        "I would thank you therefor."

        "So you shall. . . . But you would do well for her if you learn what you can first. . . . Captain Antonio knew her before."

        "So he will have it to be, but I conclude that he makes a wrong guess. He is Genoese, and it is a town where she never was. He is not her friend."

        "But he is yours. . . . If he have the wrong tale, you should not avoid: you should face it, and break it down."

        Francisco could not deny that this counsel was good. He said: "If you will contrive that I see her again, I will give her warning of this, of which Del Monte should know. I suppose that she will answer truly when she is charged, and that she will have little to fear, for he will not have her abused."

        "If you will meet me here at tomorrow noon, I will bring you an order to see her then, which I am assured that Sir Oliver will not deny."

CHAPTER XV

        FRANCISCO did as he had agreed, asking Antonio, when he got back, to tell him why he spoke of Venetia as he did, and promising that, if he said no more than he held for truth, there should be no quarrel thereon.

        Having that pledge, Antonio told him enough, or too much, for it confirmed Francisco's thought that he had confused her with another of a like manner or face, as it is easy for those to do who wander about, seeing many in diverse lands.

        "Well," Antonio said, "if I have, I have done her a great wrong, which I should be glad to regret. But you should ask it of her."

        In the later day, he had Del Monte's letter, and went to him at once. Here he heard much the same talk that Angelica gave him before.

        "Let her tell the truth," the Commander said, "and, though it stink, I may bring her free. But if she lie, she may fall in too deep a pit for any rescue to reach, and if you are her true friend you must warn her of that, as I have intention to do. But it is you who should see her first."

        "I am her friend," Francisco replied, "and too much so to believe that which is spoken to her dispraise, she being one (if I come through this war) whom I hope to wed. But I will tell her all that you say, for it is right she should know."

        "You may recall to her mind that I urged upon her that she should be artless without reserve, but I must tell you that they were words (as it seemed to me) that she was not grateful to hear."

        Francisco said nothing to that. But he became more urgent of heart that he should see Venetia himself, both that he might have the relief of assurance from her own lips, and because it seemed that so fair a face had few friends in that monkish hold.

        Del Monte saw how she looked to him, and said less than he might, being a man of controlled speech, though he would have words enough for the right time, which he handled as he would handle a sword, using the point more than the edge.

        He saw well what had been in Sir Oliver's mind, which he would be glad to support. "Yet," he reflected, "I must practise to bring her clear, putting that before all, for I have pledged my honour thereto. I know not how the steward died, as none will (except she) to the world's end, and as to her, if she spoke in her sleep, she would be most likely to lie. For she is of that sort who should be hanged by one who would govern well (whether for the man's death or another cause, it is no matter for that); in which he would act without malice to her, but as one orders a room."

        After that, he had another thought, seeing a plan by which he might protect her, and guide other things to a good end, if Sir Oliver would see it in his way, and could bring the Grand Master to that accord. . . .

        Francisco waited till the next day (having no choice), when Angelica met him again, giving him a pass by which he could see Venetia as much as he would, till she should be called to answer her charge; and it was not long from that hour before the key turned in the door of the chamber where she was held, and he was present to her.

        The chamber was of a fair size, and, if its appointments were not rich, they were the best the jailer could do; for Francisco's gold had spoken loudly enough, and Sir Oliver's order that she should not be abused had played the same tune, so that the jailer could feel that he was obeying orders by the same means that his pouch swelled, which he was not always able to do.

        But she was lodged in the common jail, which was not designed for those of the better sort. A Knight of the Order, or even a serving-brother, being accused either of light or heavy offence, would not have been harboured there, but in a dungeon or tower. The jail had common rooms for those whose purses were lean or bare, and these were noisome enough; and if men fought there for crusts at times, it would not be esteemed matter for scandal against the state, for why should true men be taxed that felons should be able to loose their belts?

        But if we think that we live in a better day, we may observe that when Francisco entered the cell there was no jailer beside, nor partition to keep him from her whom he came to see.

        The cruelties of those days were most largely of abstinence and neglect, or to a politic end, while those of our own jails are carefully planned to degrade the soul and torture the mind, and are enforced with a bitter and very tyrannous will.

        A jail is seldom a place of comfort or peace, though there are few of the world's best, from Christ Himself, who have not entered such doors, but the scrupulous cruelties of design that snatch at a man's clothes, and forbid his speech, and beat him down to a servitude of routine, may be more merciless, as they are more deliberate, than those of dirt and neglect.

        Francisco came to a room that was somewhat bare, and its walls were stone, and that only washed with a plain paint, at a time when it was the fashion to have them panelled in wood, or else patterned in paints, if not gay with a pictured scene, unless they might be draped with tapestry in a wealthy hall.

        The walls were plain blue: the ceiling bare: the window darkened with heavy bars. The rushes on the floor were too few to soften the tread, and were not clean, having been there for a week, it being a time when rushes were not easy to get. But that, in this time of siege, could have been excused in a better place, and it was at least the best room in the jail, and better than those where the jailer must make his home.

        Venetia rose up from a bed, being the place where she mostly was when she could not be active abroad; for she thought that it was so that she nursed the soft contours of youth, on which she depended to make her trade. But she was not soft in a woman's way, being tireless to walk, or to ride or swim, if she should be roused by sufficient need.

        Her hatred of Malta (which it would not be easy to overcall) came mostly from how she had been confined, after the first month that La Cerda had brought her there. To her mind, she had not been free from that hour. She had done no more than change jails, and each time for the worse till now, when she might be said to have moved a step up, from the narrow battery cell.

        She was not meagrely clad, as we have seen her before, having procured (we may wonder how, but guess with some use of Francisco's gold) a gown of daffodil green, long and slender and straight, being a colour that pleased the pale gold of her hair, and gave her a very simple and chaste allure, as of a madonna in bud.

        She had the wary eyes of a cat as the key turned in the heavy door, which changed to a softer glance, as she heard Francisco's voice before he appeared.

        "If I am back in an hour's time?" It was the turnkey who could be heard to enquire.

        "You can come then, but you must be ready to wait if I am not done."

        The man agreed, and there was a sound of the clinking of coins. "I will knock twice," he said, "before I open the door." He wished it understood that he would not appear in a sudden way to the disconcerting of those who might be busy within.

        "You are my good friend," she said, "to come thus. I feared that I should be too closely confined, recalling what the Grand Master's malice had said." Her voice was soft, and her eyes added to her words, both in gratitude and appeal.

        "I am ever your friend," he replied, any doubt that may have been an undercurrent of trouble in his thoughts during the last day retreating now that her bodily presence possessed him again. "I would be more, if I might."

        What did he mean by that? How, she wondered, must this game be played in the best way? She owed much to him. Did he think the time for payment had come? They would be alone for the next hour. She had heard him provide for that. Did he think to play the steward's part, for something better than he had got?

        She put the thought aside, and then embraced it again as she considered that he might have taken La Cerda's death to give him more freedom than his honour had permitted before.

        He was of another world than that in which she had been bred to bend and cozen and lie, and she would have had some excuse if she had failed to sum his passion, his loyalty, his pride, his knowledge of his own code, and his inexperience of the baser ways of the world, to the total they truly made.

        It showed the quality of quick perception, and of a wit that had raised her high from the gutter in which her childhood had sprawled and fought, that she could read one who was so far from herself in standards and ideals of life.

        "There is little," she said, "that you could not ask, having done so much."

        "It is nothing," he said. "It has been pleasure to me. . . . I would ask nothing of right, which it were unknightly to do. . . . Yet . . . when you have had time to forget . . . I will hope that I can ask more at a better time."

        She held out a hand, which he kissed. His reticence wooed her as boldness would have been powerless to do. She came at that time to the threshold of love, which she could not cross, being held back by her own past, the rose of love having fallen in sundry

mire.

        She said: "You are good to me," and her voice was sincere without need of the art which she would have found it easy to use. But her thoughts, now that she was sure that modesty was the best card to play from a lying pack, returned to that from which they were seldom far, since the Grand Master's eyes had fallen upon her half-draped form in Francisco's cell.

        She asked: "But you will be bringing me news? Is it good? Will they let me through? The Chevalier Del Monte was here, and said I had done no more than the law supports, and it should give me quittance of that."

        "I have seen him, and had word from Sir Oliver Starkey as well. They speak to another point, and both are urgent that I should put it to your reply.

        "I think it needless to do, but I must keep my word, as, except he be clear on this, Del Monte will not undertake your defence in the right way.

        "I will tell you what Captain Antonio says, on which he is very sure, and which points to the same danger as they.

        "It seems that he knew of a Genoese girl - he is Genoa born and bred - Maria Pezzo by name, of whom he has matter to tell, such as that she was jailed on a charge of robbing seamen who made resort to a house where she was one (he says) of a gang of evil repute.

        "He says he knows that she was near to be hanged at another time, though little more than a child, her name being as bad as it was.

        "The second time was not more than three years ago, when Doria's galleys were in the port, as he could find men from the fleet here who would witness, and would know her again (which he does not propose to do). He says that she escaped by defect of proof, as was publicly shown, but that, indeed, she bought herself out of the jail by ways he does not scruple to say.

        "All this would be naught to us, but that he will have it that you are this girl of his own slums, which he should perceive that you could not be.

        "Sir Oliver may have the same talk, or may not, but he is plain that there will be challenge of who you are, and he has warned Del Monte, who says that, let the truth be what it may, if it be told, he has good hope he can bring you off, but he will be cast down by a lie.

        "You will forgive that I tell you this, for it is right that you should know what is proposed, that we may be equal to its repulse."

        Venetia listened, and there was no sign on her face of the thoughts she had. She saw that she must choose now, either to show what she had been, and to expose the falsehood of that which she had told to him and to La Cerda before, or she must be hardy in a denial which must be sustained when the trial came, lest she come to worse wreck even than the sore back that she had feared since La Cerda had proved too weak to be her defence among these knights where (as she would have said) the manhood was hard to find.

        Had it been no more than Antonio's tale, she thought that she might have beaten it down, but there were the two years between the flight from Genoa, and when she came to La Cerda's bed, and what - if she could only guess! - might be known of them . . .? There was the merchant who was robbed and slain in Turin. Her hands, in fact, had been clean of that, but she had been in the house, plying the same trade, even in the next room when they choked his scream, and afterwards they had given her fifty ducats to keep her still. . . . It was by that gold she had made advance. But she knew that three had been hanged for that deed (after a time on the wheel), and that another was wanted, who was not unlike to herself . . .

        "You would think," she said, "that none would believe such tales, which it is wicked to tell. As to Genoa, I was never there in my life days. It is their malice to bring me down, which they cannot do, except they be armed with lies.

        "But I will not say that I am not in a new fear, for it is always a simpler thing to propose a lie than to prove that it is untrue. And how am I to do that, we being sieged here as we are?"

        Francisco saw some reason in that, but he thought he saw also a way out which she might have missed.

        "As to that," he said, "I know not what tale Sir Oliver may have got, but if it be this of which Captain Antonio talks, there should be a confident way. For the Grand Master would not practise to bring you down with a false word, nor would Sir Oliver be a party thereto; and if Captain Antonio will find those seamen he says he can, and they will say (as they must) that Maria Pezzo was different from you, we shall have witness that might be put to Sir Oliver himself before the trial be held, and he would see that he had been wrongly led."

        Venetia listened to this, and must look more pleased than she felt. Yet she let a doubt be seen.

        "So it would. It is well thought. . . . But what if Sir Oliver have a quite different lie? We should know that first, and I suppose that we must not move in this till Del Monte have consented thereto. He will see me here tomorrow at matin hour, and I will tell him what Captain Antonio would be able to do."

        "So it shall be, if you will. . . . But the time goes."

        He was reluctant to have delay, but he saw that, if she wished Del Monte to be told first, as having her defence in his hands, it was a wish he could not deny.

        She turned the talk after that into other ways, becoming soft of glances and voice, but yet holding him off with his own words: "We will say more at a better time."

        He understood that she would give him her love when the charge of murder would be lifted from off her name. He was not likely to give faith to Antonio's tales, judging her both with the blindness of love and as he found her to be.

        But she was doing no more than to maintain a position which it could be no profit to lose, though she had ceased to hope it would be her gain. She wanted to think well, which she could not do till he should be gone.

        When he left, she lay unmoving for a time which lengthened to hours, her fingers knitted behind her head. Her eyes were distant and hard, and over them at times there came a shadow of fear, and, at others a smile dimpled her face, and passed as a little wind may ruffle a quiet lake, and pass quickly away.

        She rose at last, as one throwing off doubt, like a cloak on a summer day. She looked round the room, and said aloud: "Well, there is little to leave," as though there were some comfort in that; and then, more to herself: "I suppose I may come to harbour at last, but the road is long."

        She did not think that the harbour for such as she was most often the hangman's cart, for she had courage to meet her need. She had a thing to do now which she had done before in a Genoese jail, when she had been younger and less assured, and she did not expect to fail.

        The jailer came in the next hour, bringing the evening meal, which was better than most men had who were free in that time of siege, for there was a promise of gold from Francisco's purse, which he did not intend to miss by any grumbling from her. He had had more now than he should have asked, and as to that which was still to come, he judged that Don Francisco would keep faith, but would not be easy to overbear.

        She looked at fish, and a steaming stew, a plate of grapes, and a half-bottle of wine.

        "Well," he asked, "are you pleased?"

        "It is well enough," she replied; "but you will suppose that I have drunk better vintage than that."

        "It is good wine," he grumbled; "you are sore to please."

        "It is well enough," she said again. She looked at the man's heavy sensual face in a more familiar way that she had done until then. "I may have other needs."

        "Then you must tell other than me." He turned away. He had done enough. It was not she who gave out the gold.

        "No," she said, "there is no haste. It is you I must tell. I must have silks bought in the town at an early hour, before Del Monte shall see me here."

        He stood hesitating. There might be profit in this, if he would go to trouble enough.

        "You should know," he said, "that you must pay first. It is the law of the jail. Can you do that?"

        "I do not say but I might. . . . But I have to talk of another thing. Should I have bugs in the bed at the price Don Francisco has paid?"

        Anger swelled the veins in the heavy face. Was this a device to cheat him of what was to come, unless he should now dance to her tune?

        "There are none such. That I swear," he said in a truculent way. And, indeed, it was a good bed, and the linen sheets were fragrant and clean, beside that it had blankets of wool.

        "But if I itch where they bite? I will show you this."

        She put a foot on the bed, drawing up her gown to show the inner side of a thigh that was smoothly slender, but rounded well. For a moment's glimpse, she may have shown above that, and his eyes were greedy of what they saw.

        He said: "I see naught. There is naught to see." But he came closer, seeing all that he could, at which she flicked the skirt down.

        "You may not see," she said, "but I feel." And then: "But there need be no trouble for that. If you get me that which I need, I will pay you all in a good way."

        He stood looking at her with heavy lustful eyes, still uncertain what she might mean, and unwilling to show his hope till he were made sure. Besides that, he was half afraid, remembering the accusation that brought her there. But he did not think she would wish to have another dead man laid to her door, with no more than the same excuse.

        "You must pay first," he said; "it is the rule of the jail, and after that I will get you the silks."

        "Why so I will," she said, "I am in the humour for that. If you will come back at a later hour - and you must bring wine of a better vintage than this."

        He looked at her now in a coarse way, seeing her for what she was, or perhaps less.

        "Why," he said, "he that was here, did he not feed you full for this time?"

        "He did naught but to kiss my hand. But you will know how to deal in a better way."

        He was doubtful still, like a wasp that hovers over a candied snare, but he could not resist.

        "I will be back," he said, "when the cells are locked, and we shall not be disturbed by any knocks on the outer gate."

        He went to his rounds. He would return at an hour when the common rooms would be closed and every prisoner locked away in his own cell till the next day.

        After that, there would be two besides himself to keep ward through the night, but the first watch would be his, and they would sleep, unless they were roused by the bell.

        She called after him as he went: "You will bring better wine? It is on that that our bargain hangs. . . ."

        The next morning, Del Monte saw Sir Oliver at an early hour. He said: "I have looked at this on all sides, and I have a proposal to make. If you take her tale to be true (which you have no witness to overset) I may bring her off; and if you probe her past, I may do it or not, but there is one thing that is sure, I must call Don Francisco in her defence, and Don Garcio also, of whom she tells me that which it is not my business to know, except so far as it may be needful for her relief. But I know you do not want them called at this time.

        "Now it seems to me that we each have something with which to trade. Why will you not be agreed to remand her now, till the siege is through? She will do no harm in a prison cell, and you can set her free at the end (as you must now, if I bring her off) when the Turks are gone. You can say now that there is more witness which you must sift, and I will agree for her side, and it will be forgotten amid the thunder of greater things. . . . I came to put this to you, before I see her again."

        "Which," Sir Oliver said with a smile, "I am assured that you will not do. She has resolved this for us both, having escaped in the night, none knoweth how; but there is cause to think that she is now in the Turkish lines."

CHAPTER XVI

        VENETIA had looked down on a man with whom she had played till he slept in a sated way, being heavy with the wine which she had coaxed him to drink, and of which she had had more than enough.

        He had been hard to bring to that point, and she did not think that his doze was deep, or that it would last long, but a short time should be sufficient for her.

        She would have liked well to give him a thrust such as that which had gone up to the steward's heart, knowing of none whom she hated more, but she would not do that which might bring her down, if she should be caught at a later hour. Besides that, she had no weapon at all, for the man had been prudent to leave his poniard where it could not be brought into that game, having had the steward's end at the back of his mind. With bare hands, he knew that he could break her across his knee, and he had, in fact, given her bruises that would be black for some days, though in no more than an evil sport, after the manner of such as he when they are brutish with lust and wine.

        Her hands were silent and swift as she clad herself with the best she had, and only became slow as she turned the key that it should not grate, for he had locked the door on the inside, as it had been prudent to do for more reasons than one.

        She had to trust her own wits beyond that, for he did not carry all the keys of the jail at his belt, as warders would do in the romances which men read at that time, both because it would have been a great burden to bear about, and because it would have been asking men to knock him on the head and go free.

        She went along a short passage, and through a door at the end that was standing wide, as he had left it for his return. She closed this, observing a bolt on its outer side, which fell into a socket in the stone floor. As she dropped it, she smiled as one whose vengeance was sure, though it might not come from her hand. He would have much to do (she thought) to explain how he came to be at the wrong side of that door.

        After that, she had no trouble at all. She knew the way out, having observed it well as she came in, which those who have been jailed before will have learnt that it is prudent to do. She passed an open door, where a man slept on a bench. She did not see the third man, from whatever cause. She found keys on a wall. It was all as simple as that.

        She was sobered by the night air, and the need of caution, which was even greater than when she had been in the jail, but she moved with a settled plan. She was noiseless on the shadowed side of the street, and quick to hide at the sound of a distant step. She came to the quay, and to a place where the skiffs were tied. There was a man set to watch there, and he did not drowse, as she had hoped that he might. He paced the length of the quay, looking out on a water which was covered by a light mist, as it often was in the night hours.

        This was the greatest risk that she had. When he was furthest from where she crouched, and near to turn, she crept across, and slipped into a boat, where she. lay flat.

        He was alert to hear the little noise that she made as she gained the boat. He came back, looking round in a wary way, but she was not seen. When he walked the next time, she unknotted the rope by which the boat was tied, but held it until he had come back and turned again, so that she should have all the time she could at the last. . . . He heard the plash of an oar, and turned to see a boat thrust off from the quay. He pulled out a pistol and fired, meaning at once to hit her if he could, and to give the alarm. . . . Men came then at a run, and boats were pushed out in pursuit, but the mist was her friend that she was not found. It had been more perilous than she had thought, but she did not fret about that, it having been safely done.

        She wished to make her way to the corsairs' camp rather than that of the Turks, both because she would rather come to Hassan's than Mustapha's hands, and because she knew that among the men of the Barbary coast she would find those who would understand what she said, which those of Turkey or Egypt would have been less likely to do. There was a jargon talked on the seacoasts, from Morocco to the Levant, which she knew well enough, having learnt it from the seamen who came ashore at Genoa where she was bred.

        It would do well enough for the first of those she would be likely to meet, and it was said that Hassan could talk in more tongues than two. She did not doubt that she would be understood when she came to him.

        Here were reasons for what would be best to do, but there was no help in them as to how it should best be done. The Barbary ships lay, for the most part, as did the whole fleet, in the great harbour which was on the further side of Sceberras ridge; but she knew that Hassan's attack on the Sanglea had been at the eastern end, which was on the opposite side of the Turkish girdle which closed St. Angelo in, and it was still there that he would be likely to be. To row up the inlet which was south of the Sanglea would be to invite bullets from either side, as her oars would be heard in the misty light of the dawn. Even in darkness (and if she could find her way) it would be perilous to attempt.

        The skiff she had taken was light, being one meant for the harbour alone, and not fit for the open sea. She had been used to boats from her childhood's days, and could control it with ease. She resolved to lie out in the midst, till the night should be further spent, and then pull up to the head of the harbour, and land where (if there were any Turks about, which was less likely than not), they would not be keeping a watch, as they could not be attacked there by the Christians, unless they should sally out from the inner harbour with all their ships, and even then it would not be a place they would choose. The land at the head of the harbour was of no moment to either side, though it would be within the lines of the Turks, which swept round to Sceberras, and to the further harbour beyond. If she landed there shortly before the dawn, she would be well within the lines of the Turks, where no special watch would be kept, and she thought that, with good fortune's help, she might find her way to Hassan's command. . . .

        It was two hours after dawn that Hassan sat in his tent, taking the first meal of the day. Most of the Turkish leaders, when they saw how long the siege was likely to be, had found roofs for their heads from the deserted villas which the knights had built in time of peace in all parts of the island. But Hassan would choose a tent when he was not on a moving deck, having the desert ways in his blood, though he had a great house at Tripoli where he kept his wives, and would sometimes be, and Dragut's palace at Algiers, which was splendidly built in the Moorish style, and was now his, and he would spend some time there in the future years, if he did not die at this siege.

        He had a pavilion, ample and rich, with partitions within itself, and here he sat on the cushioned, carpeted ground, and ate and drank in a frugal way, for which Dragut would have had a jest of contempt.

        A servant entered, and said: "Lord, there is a giaour woman without, who says she has escaped from the town, having been wrongly accused, and fled where she supposes she will be safer than there. She says that she has matter you will be grateful to hear."

        "Is she one of a common kind?"

        "She has been well-kept, and is white and clean. . . . She is richly attired, and fair enough in the Christian way."

        Hassan saw that the man gave grudging praise. He said: "There is one woman who is, as I suppose, in St. Angelo now, whom I would be thankful to get, but I suppose it is not she."

        "She is soft of speech, and her hair is paler than gold."

        "Then it is not. But I will hear what she has to say. Bring her in, and leave her with me alone."

        Venetia came, looking confident in a quiet way, for she was always equal to an event which she expected to meet. With a woman's art, she had contrived to bear little sign of the way in which she had toiled and walked during the night. She was one who would always save that which she wore, at the cost, if not of her skin, at least of a pain which would be less easy to see.

        Hassan looked at her with friendly, approving eyes, but she knew too much of Saracen ways to give much value to that. She knew that, if he should order her to the strangler's hands, it would be done in a smooth way, without hardening his voice, as a Christian would be likely to do.

        "You have come," he said, "from St. Angelo during the night? By what way did you do that?"

        "I came from the quay that is under the castle wall. I took a boat and rowed to the end of the harbour, and then I walked here."

        "It is as easy as that? Why have you walked so far from the place where you came ashore?"

        "It was to you that I came."

        "Why to me?"

        "I preferred you to the Turkish leaders, thinking you would listen to what I have come to tell."

        "Why should you think that?"

        "I was born on Genoa quay."

        Hassan considered this reply, which he understood. Mustapha would have been likely to put her to torture as the readiest way of getting the truth from lips which, being Christian, would be likely to lie to him; and when he had done, he would have made an end of a woman's body that was no longer of marketable condition. He might have acted better than that, but it was not a chance that any woman would choose. Piali might have been worse than he. But the corsairs of the Barbary coast had a reputation for destroying little that they would be able to sell. Their mercies were no better than that. But a Christian woman who came to their hands would be stripped and examined with a slave-merchant's eye, and if they cut her throat when they had done, she might be sure that she was of little good, either for man's pleasure or woman's toil.

        Hassan looked at her with considering eyes, and there was a silence which was not easy for her to endure. She knew that he would act without haste, but when his next words should come they would be likely to make her fate plain. When he spoke at last, it had the form of a threat, and yet it put a better confidence in her heart than she had yet had.

        "I am about to ask you some questions which you will do well to answer with great care; for if you attempt to lie, I do not say you will find a quick death, but you will wish that you had."

        "I shall not stumble on that stone."

        "Many do. You are Christian?"

        "I am Christian born."

        "Would you betray those of your race and creed?"

        "I seek to save my own life, taking the only way that I have. Had they left me in peace, I had not been here. If their own lives are in more hazard from me, it is no more than they threatened mine."

        She spoke the thoughts which had come as she had lain and planned on the previous day, and which were in part what she truly felt, but more largely what she had considered that she must be ready to say. They held a logic which is less likely to be perceived by the rulers of states than by those whom their laws pursue. For a state will make war on the life of a single man who is born on its own land, and think that he should still be loyal to it in separate ways, which is to ask much, and especially so of one whom it esteems unworthy to live.

        Hassan asked: "You have no more reason than that?"

        "It is said that the Grand Master once rowed as a Turkish slave." "So he did. What then?"

        "Would you have him do it again?"

        "Do you mean that you would?"

        "It would give me a special joy."

        Hassan saw that there might be more in this than he had first thought. It was a fact that La Valette had spent a year of his earlier life toiling on the bench of a Turkish galley, and with a back raw from the driver's stripes. It was an experience such as fell to many of the leaders of both sides in the fierce naval strife that had raged for centuries on the Mediterranean Sea. For, if they were captured, their ransoms would be fixed so high that the money could not be quickly raised, and meanwhile it was held by some that the worse they were served the more their friends would strive to provide the gold.

        La Valette had been a captain in the fleet of the Knights of Malta, before any thought that he would come to his present power. He had been a scourge to the Turks, and they had shown him no love when he came into their hands. It may have been his treatment at that time which urged him now (among higher motives than that) to be their so bitter foe.

        Hassan had been captive too, and had been one of those slaves who were chained in couples to work at the walls by which Malta was now strong to protect the Cross which its ramparts flew. He also might remember that, when a mood of mercy must be put by.

        Now he clapped his hands, at which an attendant came quickly and silently to receive his commands.

        "Alif," he said, "I will talk to this woman apart. You will see that none enters here, till you are again summoned by me."

        The man bowed without words, and withdrew.

        Venetia did not understand what was said, it not being in any tongue that she knew; but as Hassan rose and raised the curtain of the inner pavilion, she could make a good guess at what it had been, and that Hassan did not regard her coming as a matter of no account.

        She felt that the first skirmish was hers, but she knew that she had yet to tread on a very perilous edge.

        He motioned her to go first, in an abrupt imperative way. He may not have thought that she would have failed to understand what was said before. The precedence was not courtesy to herself, which he would have thought an unseemly thing, even had she been a princess of his own blood, it was no more than the routine prudence of one who did not wish to offer his back to be stabbed by those who might not be friends.

        Venetia looked round on a couch and cushions of silk, and on coffers of metal and ivory which she knew to be of a great price, and may have been of the best that the world held at that time. She saw that one, having an open lid, was filled with books which were richly bound, in the style that Morocco had made its own. Her eyes passed over them in a heedless way, as might be excused at the pass at which she then was. But she would have had no use for them at another time, even had they been in her tongue. The world was her book, and she found it to be one of which the last page would be hard to reach.

        There were rich arms hanging on the pavilion wall. She saw jewelled hilts, and gilded bucklers finely engraved, and the dark-blue of Damascus steel. In all she saw there was demonstration of culture and wealth.

        The pavilion contained other personal, intimate things which she was more quick to observe than a chest of books, but she resolved at the first glance that it was a place where no woman came.

        His words sounded as though he had heard her thought: "You may say all you will here without danger of other ears, for I bring no woman to war, no more by land than by sea."

        He motioned her to a heap of cushions upon the ground, and stretched himself on his couch.

        "And now," he said, "you can tell me much, and by that path you can win safety and ease; for what you sell (if the goods be sound) I will fairly buy. But I warn you again that, if you give me false word, I will have no mercy for that. So when you speak, you should think well."

        "I can tell you much," she said, "and I have no purpose to lie. But I have had no food since I left the jail in the Bourg, which was ten hours before now."

        "I had thought that, but my time is short. I suppose that you can sit there and not faint; and when I go you can have better food than the town gives, if I am content that you give honest replies. Can you tell me the weakest points at which we could make attack on the town?"

        "I could tell you some things it might be useful to know, and of one that may be the best way, but you would judge better than I. I will not boast that I can do more than is true, for (except in the first days) I have been little abroad since I came to Malta when April began, so that there is much that I do not know."

        "Then we will leave that, for this time." He began to question her upon many matters which she could not see that it would be much gain for him to know, and on which she soon had reason to think that he knew more than herself, which made her the more careful to answer with exactness, and not to profess familiarities which were not hers.

        She was, in fact, in more peril than she could guess, for he was using the knowledge that he had gained when he had been prisoner within Malta's walls, added to and revised by that which he had had from the lips of his present spies, to test both her truth, and her value as to any witness which she might give.

        He rose abruptly when these questions were done "I shall be away," he said, "till the noon hour, or beyond. After that, you shall tell me more."

        He returned with her to the outer pavilion. "You can wait my return here," he said. He called Alif, to whom he gave instructions that she was to be well served.

        He left her with a sense that she had commenced well. She had not hoped so much as that she would be sheltered in Hassan's own tent, even for some hours of the middle day when he was not there.

        When he was outside, he gave commands that she should not be allowed to leave (but this she would have too much sense to attempt, as he might have guessed), and that enquiry should be made as to who she was, and the circumstances under which she had fled from the town. Then he went to join a Council of War that Mustapha had called.

CHAPTER XVII

        VENETIA could not know that she had come at a good time for herself, the jealousies of the commanders of the Turkish army having broken out in open dispute since the failure of the attack on the Sanglea. Hassan was determined that he would lose no more men in assault unless at his own time, and to plans that had his assent while he was not willing that Piali should lead his forces to a success which would emphasise his own failure a week before.

        Into Mustapha's heart there had come a doubt of whether St. Angelo would ever be taken by the army he now had, but he would not entertain this, being stubborn in his resolve, with the cold implacable purpose of age, which would not lightly be turned aside. His generals had failed more than enough. Was it in himself to succeed at last? The present Council was to resolve whether there should be further assault, or that they should be content for a time to invest St. Angelo's walls, and bombard it from every side.

        Piali was for a continued assault, and, whether his judgement were good or bad, he sustained it at this time with better argument than he always had.

        "You talk of caution," he said, "and the lives of men, and I tell you that it is prudence that fears delay, and that you lose more life in the end with this length of siege than if you should drive your regiments against the wall even by firing upon their rear.

        "You do worse than that, for you risk that we shall withdraw at last, or be chased away, to the shame of the Moslem lands.

        "How long will Europe be still? Do you forget that the allied fleets would be stronger than ours? If we cannot prevail as we now are, shall we do so when a Spanish army is round our rear? Will it be months before the Viceroy is stirred to move? You will find that weeks is a better word."

        "You are full of words," Hassan said, when Piali's passionate speech had run down, and after a pause to show that he was not roused to an equal heat, "and some are foolish to me, and some have a better sound. But would you tell us just what you would do, if you have your own way?"

        "I would assault," he said, "on every side, and with every man that I have, and I would not cease by day and scarcely by night till the place is won. If they are stubborn and fierce of heart (as I do not deny), I would be more stubborn and fiercer than they, I would bombard with every gun that we have, and I would not cease while we have a keg of powder unbroached."

"It is low enough now," Hassan interposed.

        "So it is; but there is more on the way which will soon be here, which is more than the Grand Master can hope on his part. The more we bombard the walls, the more must they reply, unless they would be utterly crushed. Every shot they fire is what they cannot replace.

        "I tell you this," he concluded, "of which I am well assured, that if we cannot succeed with our utmost force, as I would have it instantly used, then we shall fail in a slower way."

        Mustapha, pulling a white beard, watched him with intent and yet expressionless eyes, and Hassan saw that it was left to him to reply.

        He said: "There is one thing for which you do not allow. You do not observe that if we storm upon walls that we do not take, we waste lives that might be used with avail on a later day, when we have beaten their walls to be less defence, and have slain many with constant fire. It is the lesson of every siege that you lose by too early assault. Would you not have those alive now if you could, whom we have lost because we assailed the Sanglea before it was ripe to fall? Should we not be better equipped to succeed on a later day, if we had left that undone?"

        "As it is," Piali replied, "I may say yes; but I would have had the assault sustained. We should have been at their walls with the dawn of the next day."

        "The men would not have been easy to move. I say nothing of yours, who had been less used, but mine had had enough for that time."

        "And was it not the same in the town? We look at our dead at the end of a day of strife, and we feel the ache in our own bones, but we are less aware of those that our foes must feel. It is often that we defeat ourselves rather than that we are defeated by them. . . . But I will ask you, as you ask me. What would you counsel to do?"

        "I would not assault again till we have further beaten the walls, unless we can find a weak point of which they are not fully aware. Or, when I do, it should be with every man that we have, the fleet aiding thereto, at which my galleys will not be slack."

        "And if the weeks pass, and there be gathering of the Christian fleets, will you say what you would do then?"

        Piali looked at him with suspicious questioning eyes, and Hassan was aware that Mustapha was regarding him in a similar way, as though he would probe his mind; and he knew that there was some reason behind the fear that the others had.

        His galleys were swift and light, and if there were news that the Christian fleets drew to a head at Genoa or Naples, or even nearer than that, he might not find it too late to embark his men, and with a fair wind at his stern he would not be easy to catch.

        Many of Piali's warships were of slower and heavier build. They might be harder to take, but they would also be slower to run, and he had store-ships that were neither strong to fight nor agile to flee, and for which his galleys must be the guard, or they would fall to the Christians an easy prey. He saw that Piali feared for his fleet, and lest, if he should be threatened with a combination of Europe's powers, his position might become worse, because Barbary's galleys would not be there.

        Hassan was under allegiance to Turkey, Byzantium being both temporal and spiritual head of the Moslem lands, but it was an allegiance which could not easily have been asserted by Soliman in a punitive way, and especially so with the war of Hungary on his hands; and if his fleet should be destroyed, and that of Hassan remain, the north African coast would be a land to which Soliman's shadow would cease to stretch. If the Christian fleet should approach in a threatening force, and Hassan's galleys should back yards to await their fire, it would be by his own will, and not because Mustapha spoke with his master's voice.

        "If," Hassan said, returning the glances which he received in the same deliberate way, "there be mustering of the Christian fleets, I suppose that we must meet them with every galley we have, of which there are some which are not here now, but which I should summon with speed, for, if we were beaten in such a strife, the whole of the inland sea would be no more than a Christian lake. And if you should be so destroyed, and I were not there, it would come to the same end, for how could I singly resist on a later day?"

        Piali was silent when he heard this, for he saw that Hassan looked ahead somewhat farther than he, fearing that which would come to pass at Lepanto twenty years after that, which one who sat at that Council would live to share.

        Mustapha saw that the time had come when he should speak. He said: "It is well thought, and what I should have expected to hear. And I will tell you now what I think, which is that Piali is largely right, except only that it will not be till a later day, if at all, that we shall have any fear of the Christian fleet. For these blasphemers, for whom one God is too few, and who make God of a man, are now in so fierce a strife of superstition among themselves that they will not unite, even to save those of their misbelief from the swords of the true servants of God. . . . We must press the siege with our utmost power, but we are yet under the shadow of no imminent fear. . . . And there is another ally we have, of which you have not spoken as yet, for there is talk that provision (except corn) is failing within the town."

        Piali listened to this, and though his fear was less that Hassan would leave him to be destroyed at the sight of the Christian ships, yet he was still urgent that the siege should be pushed by storm rather than in more gradual ways, and he wished to know (which he thought his right) that he should be in command at such times, rather than Hassan again.

        "There is another thing," he replied, "which has not been said, and that is that the summer passes its prime. There will come a day when it is not good to keep an army in tents, and when the seas are loud with contending winds. If you will be counselled by me, we shall then be tied up to our several quays, and unloading the spoil. If you give me command," he turned to Mustapha to add, "with every man that we have, it will not be two days before we are over the walls of the Sanglea, and St. Michael will not be long after to fall."

        Mustapha did not return his glance. His eyes were between the two as he answered: "I have had good counsel, on which I shall think well."

        He saw that he was weakened by the ambitious hates of those on whom he must most rely, but he could reflect that they were less held apart than were those of the Christian lands. He did not think that the guns of Europe could have thundered round Byzantium's walls and Egypt or Tripoli stood aside in debate of whose part it was to succour those of their own faith, or in a poor hope that the Turks might have single strength to sustain the war. . . .

        Yet it was not all Christian men, of whatever faith, who should be blamed at this time, for the spirit of Europe stirred against rulers of colder blood. As the news of St. Elmo's fall, and of the Turkish repulse at the Sanglea was carried from land to land, there was clamour that the Knights of Malta should not be left to perish at infidel hands, and there were prayers in churches of every creed. In the chancelleries of Europe there was frequent debate, and plans were proposed, and put by. For each would ask from whom the cost was to come, or who would gather the spoil, or to whom the glory would be likely to go. They thought less of the rescue they might have made than of how they would be aligned again on the next day.

        Elizabeth said: "They fight well. It would be to our glory to give them aid. Shall the Papists do it alone? For we are all foes of the Turks who are Christian men."

        She looked at Burleigh, tapping the board with a restless hand, and he looked back at her, judging her mood, as he was very able to do.

        "It is Philip's part," he said; "let him waste his strength before ours. We shall have more peace on the Spanish main."

        Elizabeth saw that. Her eyes became distant and shrewd as she schemed ahead for her own land. As she was silent, he spoke again, driving in a new wedge. "There would be a great cost. Do you think Philip would pay?"

        "That he would not!" Elizabeth spoke with the contempt that the mean-minded are quick to feel for others of kindred ways." But the Mayor would support a new tax for so great a cause?"

        The assertion had a note of question, if not of doubt. There was much craft to be used in the pretexts for raising taxes at that time, so that men might pay from a willing purse. But Burleigh was cold to that.

        "We have other needs," he said, "and what I think is a better plan."

        Elizabeth saw that it should be left for that time. "But," she said, "be they papists or no, they are bold men. They shall have a place in our prayers." She gave a charge that news from Malta should reach her hand without pause, be she where she might, either by night or day. . . .

        Philip, in his great palace in Seville, which had once been that of the Moorish king, heard that the Sanglea had stood the storm, and wrote to Garcio with his own hand, as his habit was. It was doubtless (he said) by the high mercy of Heaven that these men who denied Christ, and made unholy mock of the Mother of God, should break their teeth as they did on the Maltese rock. The Viceroy should watch with care, and if it should seem that help was required (that is, if St. Angelo would be likely to fall if it were withheld) and if such help could be prudently sent (that is, if there were no danger that it would be less than enough, making no difference to the result, and so being to the shame of Spain, besides that it would be at a cost that no one would be likely to pay), then he might use such force as was near his hand, either of soldiers or ships.

        But he must look on all sides, as a statesman should, and also ahead. It would be a great matter to be drawn into a Moslem war. The German Emperor had that on his hands now, and it kept him from being vexatious in other ways. He said again that Garcio must look on all sides, being wary in what he did. . . . But he should let the Pope know that he was preparing help in an ample way. He should receive well all those volunteers who came to Sicily from the northern lands, seeking shipping that they might be transported to Malta's aid. Even if there should be some expenses in their equipment, or entertainment (that the sympathies of Spain should be shown in a public way) Garcio need not fear that he would be expected to pay these from his own purse. He had a generous lord. He could charge them in his accounts, at least so far as they would be covered by the revenues which would reach his hands. . . .

        Philip sealed the letter himself as his habit was, and turned his pen to write of matters more near his heart, being of how Egmont was to be weeded out of a land where he had the love of too many men, and the Flanders burghers brought to a humble mood.

        Pius IV, the one ruler who wished with a single mind to see Mustapha chased from St. Angelo's walls, strove by pleading, by admonition, even by threats of the Church's wrath, to shorten delay. All the troubled intrigues by which the Vatican paid for its secular power were now centred round the rescue of the beleaguered knights. But he was dealing with statesmen as astute and less scrupulous than himself. They gave fair words and pledges that they were not instant to keep. . . . The weeks passed, and those who watched from St. Angelo's highest tower could see the flashes of the encircling guns, which were never still from this time, having become a girdle of fire, which, like the coil of a constricting snake, drew closer from day to day, but there was no sign of a Christian fleet on the summer sea.

CHAPTER XVIII

        HASSAN rode back from the Council, revolving many things in his mind, but with a fixed resolve that the event of the siege should subserve his own ambitious designs, as Dragut, as bold but not so careful as he, would not have troubled to plan.

        He had seen clearly enough that Mustapha had meant that the toll of losses which must result from the attack on the Sanglea should be taken mainly from his own men, as would have happened had not Don Francisco's guns brought disaster to the Turkish boats. He had accepted that position, which it would not have been easy to refuse, and with some hope that the capture of the Sanglea would have added to his renown. Since it had failed, he had been resolute that he would not be used again as the cat's-paw for Mustapha's plans. The next time that he ordered his men to death, it should be at his own will, both on its occasion and in its design. But there was no need to tell Mustapha that in crude, quarrel-breeding words. He revolved the problem of St. Angelo's capture in a mind that was not accustomed to fail, and he aimed at such a plan as would make its fall to be clearly due to himself, and the wild army that called him chief.

        He pondered Malta as an outpost of his own power, rather than as a distant jewel to be set in Soliman's crown, and was not sure that it would be easy to hold, even if it were won. It was too distant from his own base: too near the Sicilian shore. Certainly it could not be securely held unless the naval predominance which the Turks had obtained in the Mediterranean during the last ten years were more absolute than it had yet become. . . . But Malta's capture, with that of the small, but excellent fleet which was warped to the quays of the inner harbour now, would be an important advance to that end. . . . He would not choose to be besieged here as La Valette was now. Better Tripoli or Algiers than that. . . . But the dissensions by which Allah drew the teeth of the Christian dogs. . . . If they should stand idle now, while the stones of Malta crumbled under the ceaseless thunder of Turkish guns. . . . Well, he was young in years. There would be time to go far. . . . And Soliman was still breaking the Christian armies, and was through the mountains beyond Belgrade.

        He did not doubt that, if St. Angelo were to fall, it was he that must bring it down. He did not doubt Mustapha's astuteness, and he knew that he was of a vast experience in methods and tactics of war. But he was old, and cautious of habit. Too circumspect in his ways to strike straight and hard, as this occasion required. Hassan agreed with Piali on that, more than he had been disposed to admit. For he thought Piali to be a worse fool than he was. The grossness of the man's size, his truculent overbearing manner of speech, as though he would silence opposition by mere loudness of voice, stirred contempt in one who had more culture, more self-control, and an assurance more confident of itself than Piali's doubtful ancestry and harem breeding had enabled him to acquire. . . .

        His thoughts turned to the woman who had wandered that morning into his camp. He did not doubt her to be of a shameless sort, even by the Frankish standards, which revolted his conceptions of the place of women in ordered life. Probably she was criminal too. But she might have knowledge that it would be profit to buy. He thanked Allah that she had come to his tent rather than that of Mustapha or Piali; either of whom, he correctly supposed, would have kept her as secret as he purposed to do.

        He thought of another woman who must be, he supposed, within St. Angelo's walls. One whose wit and courage had enabled her not only to escape when she had been in his hands, but by that freedom to bring to wreck the climax of what might have been one of the most splendid and spectacular audacities of a career in which failure was not frequent to find.

        Even in that, he had not been without some reason to boast, for there was the capture of the Flying Hawk, and then the successful impersonation of the Grand Master's envoy, of which men would talk with little care that he had planned beyond that, and had hoped to lure Don Manuel's galleys to the Formentera trap.

        But the fact that he had been so foiled, and by one whose follies of sex and youth had seemed to drop her into his hands like a falling fruit, gave her a larger place in his mind than she would otherwise have been likely to have.

        He recalled her as he had seen her first, in the setting of Don Manuel's castle, being that to which she was born, and in the garb which was usual to virgins of gentle blood in the Latin lands. He remembered a pulchritude at which it had been pleasant to gaze, joined to a vivacity of spirit which was not easy to find among the more secluded, restricted women of his own race. But he had not looked at her then with more than a casual admiration, and praised her with courtesies appropriate to the part he played.

        He remembered her as she had boarded the Flying Hawk in a page's dress, which had deceived him at first. . . . And the spirit in which she had met his recognition, and the knowledge of how she had come by her own will to the jaws of a deadly snare. Had she planned escape from the first? Had she understood the desperate peril she took when she left his deck in the night for the wind-tossed sea? He did not know, and could only guess in a vague way which did not lessen the deed, how she could have come at last to the deck of her cousin's ship. . . . He was not given to the sexual indulgence which was too frequent among the rulers of Moslem lands. Ambition centred his mind. He had Dragut's daughter for wife, a woman to whom he had given honour for her father's sake, and his obligations to him, which he would not lightly forget, even had it not been politic while he lived to keep them before his mind. But for that, she would have tasted more than once the chastisement that such women deserve. For she had her father's passion for the strong drinks that the law of Mahomet will not permit, and if it were either starved or too greatly indulged she would fall into quarrelsome moods, such as women should not be suffered to show to their natural lords. . . .

        He had two others who were pleasant playthings at times, but, beyond that, they had no place in his thoughts. . . . He wondered, from what he had seen and heard when a Maltese slave and at other times, what such a wife as Angelica would be worth to have.

        He might doubt of that; but that she would be pleasant to beat was no doubt at all. He might admire her for courage and other things, including that she had the look of one who would be likely to bear a good son for the man to whose hands she was fated to come, but the first thought that would fill his mind if she should become his by the chance of war, was that she must be taught that no woman could make sport of his plans without being brought to shame, or a bitter death.

        It would be absurd to suppose that the capture of Angelica could appear to him as a major reason for compassing St. Angelo's fall. He had greater dreams; and would have said that there was no woman the world could hold who would be worth the hazard of life, Allah having supplied them in a very plentiful way. But he had resolved that when St. Angelo fell (as he meant it should) there was one who would not escape, nor be included in any amnesty that might place her beyond his power. He would give such orders as would bring her captured and still alive. . . . He had never ordered that a woman should be impaled, as Dragut would sometimes do, but it would have its amusement to see how she would behave in front of that death. . . . He did not resolve that he would order her to be ended thus. It would depend on his mood. But he meant to have her, and to give her sufficient cause to regret that of which he supposed she was boasting now, as a detail that his satisfaction required. . . .

        He had this thought in his mind, among larger things, as he rode back to his camp, and enquired what had been learnt of Venetia while he had been away. He found that he had been well served in that, as he mostly was, being one who would be generous to reward, and also just (which is more) both in praise and blame, while having no forgiveness for failure of act or will.

        It was proof of the activities and prevalence of Turkish spies in the town that he could be told at once of the charge on which her arrest had been made, with some detail, which did not deviate far from fact, of what she had been, and how she had come to her present pass. He saw that she had not fled without cause, which he supposed to be even more than it was, and somewhat differently based; and when he joined that to the fact that she had endured his first examination without being caught in a mendacious reply, he concluded that she might be one of whom a use could be made.

        He went into his tent resolved to question her again concerning herself, and what she had been and done, and after that he would decide whether she would be of more use to him than a slave's price.

        Venetia had had her own thoughts in this time. She had been served with better food than she had seen for some weeks, and she was one who was dainty in what she ate, as will often be with those whose childhood did not disdain a scrap of meat that the dogs had left. She knew the difference between that to which she had reached and that she had known in her early days, to which she would not lightly return.

        She considered the inquisition through which she had come, which she concluded that she had well sustained. She looked round the comfort of Hassan's tent, and decided that she had arrived at a good place, which she must practise to keep. She knew that Moslems did not regard women quite in the Christian way, and that success might require a somewhat different technique from that at which she had become proficient before, but she did not think that she would prove unequal to that, and she had a sound belief that men are fundamentally alike in all lands, when they are snared in a woman's wiles.

        She considered what she should tell concerning herself, and why she had fled, and decided that a large proportion of truth would be expedient in itself, as well as saving much trouble to her. Those who live by lies (if it be done with any success) must have learned that the lie is a weapon to use with reluctance as well as care. It is apt to be like the sting of the bee, which might die (as she had been told) through having used it against a foe.

        She did not regard the adventures of her life with either scruple or shame, providing that they could be told without rousing interference of law, or losing the regard of those to whom she should speak, as would have been the case if she had exposed herself to Francisco in a bare way, either in body or soul.

        But when a woman offers to betray those of her own race to their deadly foes, they do not seek assurance of virtue in her, as making it more sure that she will perform her bond, but rather that she shall give, for that time, no sign of a lying tongue. She decided that Hassan should have as much simple truth as any man could in reason require from a woman's mouth.

        "I have one leg over the wall," she said to herself, "and it is my fault if I slip now."

        She looked at Hassan as he came in, handsome in the loose crimson and white of his military undress, and she thought him to be one to whom she would not object to belong, though she knew that there were disadvantages in being a Moslem's wife, particularly if he should get another at any time whom he should come to prefer. It might then be necessary, perhaps for years, to live a very continent life, while being neglected by him; with the fear of a bowstring tightening around the neck as the price of an indiscretion so slight that even a jealous Italian husband, whose love had not wandered another way, would not have been much disturbed. . . .

        "They have fed you well?" he asked, as he entered, and the question was well enough, as was the good-humoured glance he gave her as she rose up from the cushions on which she had posed herself to await his coming. But she recognised it as being no more than the way in which a man might ask if his dog had been given sufficient meat, or even as he might enquire concerning a creature that was being fattened for his own dish. And he might look at such a beast in just that good-humoured way, as something it gave him pleasure to have. She was shrewd enough to perceive that there was no friendliness in his regard. She must prove her use, if she were to have any favours from him, and then she might find herself shipped for the slave-market at Byzantium or Algiers the next day when her use was done. . . . She had far to go before he would look at her in a personal way.

        Well, she had done difficult things before now. She remembered how she had first invited La Cerda's eyes. . . .

        He had given orders that he was to be left alone, and he settled himself now to listen at ease, telling her to seat herself in the same way. His power was too great, she was too absolutely in his hands, for him to be careful of the parade of rule. His object was to lead her to fluent talk, that she might reveal herself, and confirm what he had heard, or else be snared in a lie, in which case he proposed to put her in the torturer's hands, while he would stand by to hear what answers the pain would bring.

        "I would know," he said, "by what stress you came here, and also what you suppose you can do to earn a life which we do not need. I suppose you know that those Turks who are captured from us are being hanged every day at Notabile market-cross? You must show me why you should be served in a better way."

        "I suppose," she said, not being disturbed by a threat which it was clear that (for the moment) he did not mean, "I could show you that, if you are truly desirous to know. For if you should think me of no more worth than a slave would be, a thousand ducats would not be easy to get for what were left when the rope's work had been done."

        "You name yourself at a high price," he replied, his eyes wandering critically over her form, which conformed more to the Italian ideals of loveliness than to those of his own race.

        "Had he lived, La Cerda would have paid more."

        "So he might. Do you grudge that he died by me?"

        It was an idea that only came to him as he spoke. Had she found entrance here that she might have revenge for a lover's death? It was a possible thing.

        Actually, the idea was new to her, having no substance of fact, and not having been circulated within the Christian lines, though it was a version of the combat in which Hassan had been cut down which had won an easy popularity on the Turkish side; and if Hassan had some cause to doubt it himself (concerning an event on the closing moments of which he had no more than a dazed mind), yet it did not follow that she had not heard the tale, and believed it true.

        It was a danger she had not expected to meet that he should doubt her in that way; but she was instant in the adroitness of her reply, in which truth, having been wooed in her imaginations before, was no less than an easy friend: "Did you so? I had not heard that, having been jailed as I was. He is one of whom I will say no ill beyond this, that he had proved unequal to be my shield against the Grand Master's pursuit. . . . I had supposed him dead at St. Elmo before."

        "It is of the Grand Master's pursuit you shall tell me now."

        "So I will; and you will see that I had no choice but to come here, if I would save my own skin, which I will keep unbruised if my wits can."

        "You are one," Hassan said, looking at her in an appraising way, "who would shrink at the whip?"

        "I have soft flesh, as you see. . . . I might not be cowardly to cry out, more than most will do. . . . But I have a good hope that I shall compass a better way."

        "So you may, if you answer now with a truthful tongue, and if you avoid that you may find that there are worse pains than a whip can give."

        "I have no cause nor motive to lie. Having good wares to trade, shall I sell trash? What do you want me to tell?"

        "You can tell all you will. I have time to hear."

        She told him then how La Cerda had brought her into St. Angelo, and found her lodging in the citadel there, how Sir Oliver Starkey had arranged for her to be sent away, how La Cerda had professed to do that, but had hidden her in his own house, and how he had quarrelled with the Grand Master over St. Elmo, and been sent there in so sudden a way that he could make no further disposition for her.

        "I heard something of that," Hassan allowed, being the first time he had spoken since she began.

        "So I suppose you might. I heard that there was much talk in the town, and dissension, even among the Commanders, thereon. But I do not say it from my own knowledge thereof, having to lie so close that it was as though I were jailed from before you came."

        She went on to her tale of the steward's death, which she had told so often before in one way that it had become fact to her as much as to those who heard, and then, in a briefer style, feeling that she had talked a sufficient time, she added that she had been in hiding since then, till she had been caught by the Grand Master a few days before, and only escaped when her trial had been at hand.

        "So far," he said, "your tale has a likely sound, and it makes junction enough with what has reached me from other mouths. Yet I do not see that you have shown cause for so great a dread that you should break jail (and you have not told me how you did that!) to come here. . . . On your own tale, you had cause to push with the dagger's point, as would be allowed in all lands."

        "So it may seem to you. But have you weighed the Grand Master's hate against such as I? Or against all women, as I suppose, unless it be a few saints of a bloodless sort."

        "There is some weight in that," he allowed, "on your side. For it is a fact, as we all know, that the misbelievers are cursed of God, so that they will not put you to that use for which you are made and meant, and then back in your own place: but they must either raise you to heights which are not for you, or else scourge their own loins, and refuse to touch you at all; which is a marvel of men who are sane in some other ways. . . . I can suppose that the Grand Master was not your friend, yet his repute is not that of one who would have you falsely condemned, and I must still say that your reason was not enough."

        "Yet it seemed other to me; and you may better believe when I tell you how they practised to bring me down. I was to be trapped, so I was warned by those who were friend to me, by being required to declare who I was, and from where I came, and when I had told the tale which I had said to Leon - to the Chevalier La Cerda - "

        "That being untrue?"

        "I had not told him all, as who would in such case as that?"

        "Yet being warned?"

        "I have told you so far that I will not restrict. I was so caught that there was a ditch on each side, both of which I had no hope to avoid. For if I held to the tale I had told before, they would bring witness to show that I had been born with another name, and if I were first with that, so that their witnesses would sing a stale song, then I must own that I was one whom Turin would be glad to have, with a charge of murder against her name."

        "Which we must suppose true, seeing of what you were now charged?"

        "Which was not true at all. I was in the house where it was done, in the next room, but I had no part in it further than that, nor knowledge of it before. . . . There were four who knew that for truth, of which three are now hanged for the deed they did, and the fourth, who was with me then, would not speak though the halter were round my neck, for he was one of high rank, and a clean public repute, who should not have been there with me."

        "Turin is a far place. Even in time of peace they would not bear you from land to land."

        "So it may sound, but Malta is not as most countries are. The Grand Master has friends in all lands, which he is careful to keep. Yet I will not say I was most fearful of that. I feared that it would be said, as you have said now, that I was one to hang, having murdered before if not then, and so most likely at that time, by a good guess."

        "And that is what I must not believe?"

        "It is untrue. I suppose there is no reason beside, for you will not care what may have been in Turin, if I can be useful to you; and, if I cannot, you will not give me a soft couch because my hands are clean of all but the steward's blood."

        "You may be right there, and yet you may have spoken your bane, for I must tell you that, having heard your tale, which I largely believe, I do not see what use you can be.

        "You will say that you know much of the town, and something of its defence. But, if you said all that you can, you might find that I know more. We have good spies, as I have no doubt that the Grand Master has on his side. They are of scanty avail, not being men who hold posts of command, or have keys in reach. They cannot betray that in which they have no trust. But how are you better than they? I should call you less. By your own tale, you have been closely immured, almost from when you were brought to this shore. I suppose that there are few who can know less. . . . Now I will ask you one thing: Have you courage and wit enough that you will go back, saying that you have repented, or what you will, and taking news of that which I will tell you to say? It is for that (and nothing beside) that I will give you gold you will like to have."

        Venetia did not like this design, which she weighed in a quick mind, and saw to be beset with dangers on every hand. She saw a tangle of lies in which she might be doubted on either side, and she knew enough of the ways of war to guess that she would not long be safe from a knife drawn briskly across her throat, even from the hands of those she might be preferring to serve. Yet she did not look so downcast as he had thought she would, as she made her reply.

        "You say you have spies enough, and, if they content you with what they tell, it is not my part to say they are less than good. Did they tell you much of the cannon by which you lost nine boats of ten, and, as the talk goes, more than a thousand lives? If they did, they were boats that were boldly led."

        Hassan looked at her with a quickened regard when she asked that. 'No," he said, "they failed us there, as you have been sharp to see. They make excuse that the battery was too secretly held. Have you other things, such as that, that you are able to tell?"

        "How can I say? Should I have known you were so badly served about that, had not the boats come to where they could be put down?"

        "And is that a thing you could have told us before?"

        "It was there I was hid for the last days, till the Grand Master must come into a cell where he had no business to be."

        "You did not tell me of that."

        "I thought I made the tale long enough without talk of each place where I lay close."

        "Then I ask you now. Did you so contrive that you could hide in the battery itself, and none know you were there?"

        "You misconceive what I did. I was harboured there by Don Francisco of Vilheyna himself."

        "By -? What is his post there . . .? He is one I have met before."

        "So I heard from him. He is in command. It was his devise to secretly change the guns for those of a longer range."

        "Tophet's fiends! We owe that to him . . .? Why did he hide you there? Was he so greatly La Cerda's friend? Or did you pay as a woman can?"

        "I paid naught. It was gift from him. He thought me hardly abused."

        "Well, so he might. . . . Tell me this, has he one who is cousin to him, woman or man, I cannot tell which, nor what they may call her now, whether Don Garcio or another name?"

        "She is man to all but a few. She was not to me, for I hid first in her room."

        "Where was that?"

        "In the castle itself. In a turret over the part that Sir Oliver has."

        "How did you get there?"

        "It was where La Cerda had me at first, before trouble began. I fled both to a room I knew, and where I knew her to be."

        "And she hid you there, being friend to you?"

        There was a tone of puzzled doubt in the query, which Venetia understood, but did not resent. She was ever content to be what she was, and assured that she could be other things if her well-being required. She answered with a candour which may have been more natural to her than the art of lying in which she had brought herself to a trained skill: "She was not my friend. She was never that. But she is not one to betray."

        "Do they know you for what you are?"

        "She could make a good guess. I am saint to him, unless he changed when he heard me fled."

        "Are they not then in accord?"

        "Over me? They are far from that."

        She told in detail the events which had followed her flight to Angelica's room, filling up with some shrewdness of surmise the gaps where her knowledge failed.

        When she had done, he said: "I will think of this, and talk to you again. Meantime you will stay here, for your presence must not be known."

        He summoned Alif, to whom he said: "There is no talk that this woman is in my tent?"

        "It is known or guessed by two, but they will not speak."

        "I will slit their tongues if they do. But if they are still, you can bring me their names on a later day, and they shall touch gold. She must stay here for a time. You will place a guard round the tent, both by night and day, that none may go in or out, except that I so command. If she should do me harm in the night, you will flay her slowly, taking the feet first."

        He turned to her, when Alif had gone. "Did you understand what I said? Then I will tell you what will be useful for you to know. You will stay here for this night, and if you mean evil to me you will have the best chance that a woman could. But I gave order that this tent should be circled so that none can go either in or out, and if I should come to harm, they will flay you alive in a slow way, taking the feet first, which (I will tell you as one who has seen it done) you will not greatly enjoy."

        He spoke in a smiling way, being pleased to take what might seem to those who looked on an unmeasured risk, as when he had put himself in Don Manuel's power, but which he felt he could control to his own end. Men would say that, having slain La Cerda, and his concubine having found her way to his tent (with what purpose it would be easy to doubt), he had slept with her alone, trusting the Prophet's care as few of the faithful would hazard to do. But in his heart there was a confident hope that Venetia would not seek such revenge, with the surety that she would be peeled alive on the next day. It was more of his own revenge on which his mind was disposed to dwell, and of the larger issue of St. Angelo's fall, as he considered how he could use Venetia's acquaintance with Francisco and his cousin to some treacherous ruse.

        Venetia took the threat with a laugh being content that she was to have a further time during which to win, if she could, the approval of the most powerful man to whom her adventurous youth had yet closely come, though she could not wholly avoid a thought of the hourly danger in which she stood among those who were natural foes, and were ruthless in what they did. She had to guard her life against all with no more to aid than her single wit, and the market value her body bore.

        So she laughed with all the courage she had, and gave Hassan a bold reply: "Then I must be glad that you look to be in good health, as one who may live to another dawn, for I would keep my skin where it is most useful to me. Did you doubt lest I would use a knife in the night. . .? I am less of that kind than you may suppose; though you cannot have felt a great doubt, or you had disposed in another way. . . . But, if you will, I can serve you in better sort."

        He looked at her somewhat as one will look at a market beast, and she felt a sudden quickening of heart, not of passion, but at the possibility that she was on the way to a new success. She saw that he was not wholly cold to that which her words implied, but when he spoke it was plain that what she sought would be less than simple to win.

        "So you could, and so you will, if I wish. You are fair enough in a pale way, but, by your own tale, you are too much of a common kind."

        "So I have been," she allowed, "but you could mend that if you would. . . . It is men who alter, not I. . . . I seek harbour that has not been easy to find."

        "Well," he said, "you must seek again. For this night, you must stay here."

        They were in the outer pavilion when he said this. He went inward, leaving her alone.

        She saw that she would have comfort enough, for there were cushions that she could pile to her own will, and rich shawls for warmth. There was a lamp that would last the night.

        She lay down and, at first, she was too weary to sleep. Her mind was active to hope and plan. She saw that she had escaped, and come to the place where she now lay, with better fortune than would have been forecast by a cautious mind.

        She had been rebuffed by Hassan's last words, and she saw that he looked at her with a contempt the reason of which she did not deny. Those who would come to a clean bed should not be too much mired on the way. Yet, if the storm come, and the rain, and good shelter be hard to find? She took little blame to herself. She was not ashamed before men, and even to God, if He should be hard with her when the time should come, she supposed that she would have something to say. But she did not therefore deny fact. If a ruler preferred to take women only into his bed who were private to him, then a harlot such as herself would not be a likely choice. She must trade at another booth. She would be a fool to complain of that; but if she could overcome his contempt till he should prefer her to those (most probably gross and stupid and fat) whom he now owned - well, it would be more triumph to her.

        Her mind turned to the warning threat he had made, and the doubt it showed. In fact, though it did not incline her to seek his life, it fathered the thought, which would not otherwise have been there.

        She was one who would always do more in dreams than the waking day. Now she lay lost in imagination of what would be said within St. Angelo's walls, if a tale should reach there that the woman they had harried and jailed had penetrated the Turkish lines and slain the corsair ruler within his tent.

        She imagined dispute in which some would say she had broken jail that she might revenge the lover who had fallen to Hassan's sword (she did not doubt that La Cerda had died in that way, having heard no different report), while others would have it that she had been moved by higher zeal for the Christian cause, and had escaped with the noble purpose of ridding it of its most dangerous foe, as well as of vindicating her own character from the imputations that had been cast upon it. She would be Judith to them. Judith was a great name. She wondered what Judith had done in her later years. Probably she had made a noble match with some Hebrew prince, who would be glad to wed with one of such valiant fame, and who had a face to seduce kings. In the day, she would have been queen of the society of her time: and in the night she would have her prince, whose head would not have to be cut off when he had drowsed after their amorous play. . . . She did not think much of the deed itself. She could have cut off the jailer's head easily enough when he fell asleep, and he would have been little loss to the world. She would not have minded doing that, if only he had been considerate enough to bring a sword, as Holofernes seemed to have done. (But what a mess Judith must have made in the bed! Hacking off heads seemed a needlessly sanguinary way to kill men, if it had to be done with good furniture all around.) She supposed Judith had wanted the head. She had heard that version of the tale in which the Hebrew heroine had strolled back to her city swinging Holofernes' head by the hair; and, when she considered that, she saw she had come to the place where the parallel would be sure to fail.

        Her imagination became lively on a new path. She had skinned living eels with her own hands. She had seen butchers skin beasts that were just dead, as all men might at that day, when slaughtering was not performed behind solid doors. Men do not greatly change with the years; and it may be error to think that the age in which Malta's agony was endured was more cruel than are those that have been since, or now are. There are cruelties in the laboratories of a later time, at seeing which a fiend might blush to be called a man. But cruelties were open then that are secret now. . . . Venetia was concerned for no more than her own case. If she could have been sure that she would walk up the Bourg swinging Hassan's head by the hair (which would have been short enough to require a good grip that it should not drop) the project might have had attractions which it now lacked.

        But she was convinced that it would not end in that way. It would end with her in the midst of a hollow square, surrounded by a crowd of corsairs, very variously and gaily garbed, and all in a silent, eager expectancy to hear how she would scream when the executioners started to peel her feet. . . . No, her skin should stay where it was, as far as that decision might rest with her.

        She turned her thoughts to the more practical consideration of how she could earn the goodwill of those in whose power she had put her life. She did not wish to betray her own blood (with some possible exceptions, the Grand Master heading that list), if she could avoid this without risk. She was simply striving to save herself, as most men (she supposed) would think it natural for her to do. Anyway, it was natural to her. She had played for her own hand through more than twenty difficult years, and was not likely to stop now, being among those who might make her back raw for a morning's sport, if she should give them excuse. Her trouble was that she did not see how she was to be of sufficient use to earn a good price in safety and then reward. Hassan's idea that she should go back to cajole the Grand Master with some tale of changing sides again, and betraying the Turkish plans, did not please her at all. She thought (in particular) that Sir Oliver would be hard to fool. The Grand Master might not skin her alive, but he would rack her if he had reason to think she lied, so that she might be a cripple till she should reach the grave, which would be hard to endure. If he guessed that she had come back as a Turkish spy, he would hang her in the next hour, and she would be in fortune if she did not come to a worse pain. . . . She might, of course, decline to fulfil the plan when she would be again under the shelter of Malta's flag. But would the mere fact of that be enough to turn the Grand Master's anger aside? Would he not talk of the law in the hateful way that the strong will, and those in a settled place, as being something above himself, to which he must commit her perforce, though he might grieve with her pain?

        She had been adroit to turn Hassan's talk aside with the tale of how she had been concealed in the battery which shattered the Turkish boats. He had been plainly intrigued by her account, for reasons she could not entirely guess; but would he come back to his first idea when he should think of it again?

CHAPTER XIX

        "I would be more at ease," Francisco said, "if I could know where she is gone; for I have a hope that she will not have put me out of her mind, and, if I come through this war, I am resolved that I will find her again."

        This was to Angelica, a week after Venetia fled. They were better friends now than they had been since she had come into their lives, or perhaps before that. Francisco, being troubled and anxious in mind, would have someone to whom to talk, and Angelica gave a sympathy that was no less true because she had some thoughts, both about Venetia and other things, which she kept unsaid.

        As to where Venetia had gone, or even how she had escaped, there was no more than a poor guess.

        The jailer had not been found on the wrong side of a locked door or at least it was not known that he had, except by the man who had come to relieve his watch, for they had seen that they would be caught in an equal blame. One had let her escape the cell, and the other had failed to keep watch at the outer door. It was a better tale to say that she had escaped, none could guess when or how, beyond that her place was empty when morning came.

        It might not be believed, but it left the blame among three, of whom two might be quite innocent men, and one, in fact, was, being the one who opened her door when the morning came, and his protests that she must have gone in a witch's way had a genuine sound.

        It was a good guess that it was she who had fled in the boat which had left the quay with a pistol bullet in swifter pursuit, but it was no more; for she had never been clearly seen in the misty night, and the boat had been adrift the next day near the harbour mouth, being empty then, and the wind carrying it to St. Elmo's point.

        The spies brought no word of her having been caught by the Turks, and the most likely guess was that she had got away to some other part of the island, and would there try for passage in a coasting boat, such as would slip over to Sicily in the night. Or it was supposed by some that she had been wounded and fallen out of the boat.

        Anyway, she was gone; and Sir Oliver saw no harm in that, and Del Monte thought it a mercy for which his own saint deserved more than common thanks, for he had had no heart in the wanton's defence, which he did not think to consort with his dignity or deserve his care. He thought himself more fitly engaged in command of St. Michael's fort, with which most men would agree.

        The defence of that fort and the Sanglea was not a post that allowed of much rest at this time, for it was recognised to be the weakest of the bastioned line which was St. Angelo's outer guard, and the Turks, while they had not attempted further storm during the last week either there or elsewhere, were still pressing closer on every side. They had received some store-ships with extra artillery, and large consignments of powder and shot, and other munitions of war, so that they could still erect more batteries, and maintain fire on all sides both by day and sometimes by night, to which the Christians must make more cautious reply.

        It was seen also that the Turkish infantry changed camp in sundry places, so that they lay closer around the walls. None could say when the storm would burst, nor at which point, but there must be vigilance at all, which must never sleep. And every day there came to Sir Oliver's table a list of those who had been wounded or died in the town from the Turkish fire, and in the bicker around the wall; and ever a watch was kept from the highest tower for the Spanish succour which did not come.

        The Maltese militia at this time was still holding the most part of the island, except the coasts, with Marshal Couppier in command. They had neither numbers, discipline, nor practice in arms sufficient for them to offer battle to the Turks, but they harassed them both by night and day. Mustapha had held more than one Council to resolve whether he should not divert his strength for a time to strike at Notabile (as it was then called), the ancient town in the centre of the island, which was the headquarters of this guerrilla attack. But the decision was always the same, that though it could be reached, and the whole island overrun, so that the militia would be destroyed, and the remaining population given to slavery or massacre, as Turkish greed or animosity might decide, yet the time which this enterprise would require, and the losses it would entail when operating in a country whose every field had a wall of stone which could shelter an ambushed foe, would be such that, when it would have been done, there would be little remaining strength with which to threaten St. Angelo's walls.

        It would be St. Elmo again in a second, fatal event. But if St. Angelo should be brought down, then the island could be made a more leisured, being a certain prey.

        So Marshal Couppier, who had been prepared to resist a Turkish advance till the last man should be dead, found that his task was less hard, though not less needful to do. Up to the time of the great assault on the Sanglea, he had been able, either by water or land, to maintain communication with the Grand Master, so that they would often time operations to vex the Turks at the same hour from their separate sides; but now the Turkish lines were so closely drawn, and so keenly watched, that it was an equal chance that a creeping messenger would be espied, and either shot as he ran or caught to hang in a rope's noose on the next day.

        Sir Oliver sent a letter out to tell of Venetia's escape, and to provide that she should be apprehended if she were found, but at this time he had had no reply, nor was he sure that the letter had been safely conveyed through the Turkish lines.

        "I suppose," Angelica said on this day, when Venetia came into the talk, "that you will wish that she did not fall into Turkish hands, lest she should have told them things that were best unsaid?"

        "She has not done that, as I think," Sir Oliver replied, "for we should have certainly heard. There is not much in the Turkish camp that we may not know if we wish, though the news has become harder to get in the last week. I suppose that they think we are nearly down, in which I should call them wrong. But the scum of men, such as will spy and betray, will ever watch for the winning side and will prefer to barter with them. . . . But as to her whom you name, she could do us but little harm, for what did she know more than a thousand besides? I should say, less. . . . But I perceive that you do not trust that she would not betray those of her own blood?"

        "I would not think evil without a cause," Angelica said to that; "but I suppose she would think first of her own skin."

        Sir Oliver agreed about that, not guessing how literally it had been, but he did not think her of much account, either to be true or betray. He said: "I suppose you can put her out of your thoughts, as one of whom you will not hear, nor yet see, till your life is through. . . . I am glad to see that, now she is gone, you and Don Francisco are in better accord. . . . I have news for you on another matter, which should give you no pain. You will not have much from Don Manuel's wealth, which the Order claims, but your Segura lands will bring you revenue in your own right, which the Church cannot touch except by your own deed when of full age, so there will be no strife of law about that. You are a ward for the next year, and after that you can freely wed, giving him you choose a great dower. . . . And now you know this to be, I suppose you will leave, if a chance should come that would take you free."

        Angelica looked at him with troubled eyes. "Do you think that?" she asked. "I had not thought to hear it from you."

        "It is what wisdom would urge, you being free of the doubt you fled, and which held you here."

        "Being here, am I less use than my food is worth?"

        "You have done your part, and few men have done more, or as much, if I make a full sum, from when you saved your ships from the Moorish trap."

        "Had I been a man, would you have said what you did now?"

        "Perhaps not. But you are a woman, who should not have come."

        "Am I that? I think at times I am neither woman nor man, being less than either. Would you say that a woman's honour must be less than a man should have?"

        "No. But it is rooted in other soil."

        "And that honour there are those who would say that I did not regard when I came here?"

        "That is what I have never said."

        "Nor perhaps thought. I did not mean it of you. But there are those who would. There are those who will in the after days. Am I to lose on both counts? By your leave, I stay here till the siege is through."

        "I do not refuse. But - do you so decide for no more than the reason you say? For, if you do, I might reply that your honour on both counts is too rooted to shake. But you should ask of your own heart: is it for Malta you so resolve or a nearer cause?"

        Angelica took this with a moment's bending of puzzled brows, which lifted again as she gave a candid reply.

        "It is Francis you mean by that! What if it should be for him? He is the nearest I have. But I should say it is both. It is also Malta I will not leave while this siege endures."

        "Then there is no more to be said, except to pray that it shall not come to such end as will bring you grief, and we must ask that for larger reasons than that you shall steer to a restful sea."

        He turned his thoughts to more urgent cares, and she, having done the work she had for that hour, went out to meet Francisco at the tavern which had now become habit to them, and where they knew they would both be at an hour before noon, unless there should be signs of stir in the Turkish camp, such as would keep him beside his guns, or she should have work of another kind which she could not leave.

        Now she found that he was seated there when she came. They were alone, for the stringency of the siege had brought such a shortage of food (except only flour) as had caused the Grand Master to take it under his control and ration it in a strict way. There was nothing which could be sold in a tavern now, except a light wine, of which the Grand Master took little account, whether it flowed or ran dry, the water tanks being as full as they were.

        Angelica saw at a glance that Francisco was stirred by some instant cause, though whether it were trouble or joy was not easy to see.

        "I have had this," he said, "in the past hour," and with the words he passed her a letter, ill-writ on what appeared to be the flyleaves torn from a large book. "It is for you also to read."

MY LORD AND I THINK MY FRIEND,

        I am close held by the Turk, having been caught by them, which I did not intend, when the boat drifted to shore, being beyond control of my hands.

        I have made plan to escape, which will be, I cannot say on which night, but the one next after this will be delivered to you.

        I shall bring news of such weight as will buy my peace, and some honour for you, but I must entreat and give you my trust in this, that you will tell my coming to none, till I am again in the cell from which I was dragged by the Grand Master away.

        When he will know how I have been served, and what I have done for the Christian cause, he may regret that he would have chased me to death, or he may not care even then, saying that I was sent here by the Saints, that I might be used to Malta's avail, which I suppose to be all his care.

        I shall come by way of the sea, at the second hour of the night, landing under your guns, being the one place where I am not most like to be met first with an arquebus ball, and after that with a question of who may come in the night from the Turkish lines.

        When I plead with you to tell none, and to so contrive that I may gain the cell without being seen except only by you (if that cannot be saved) I do not mean that Don Garcio shall not be told - he not being one to betray. He is one I shall ask you to tell, and he may think in what plight I shall be, having been racked, and had some tortures besides that I cannot write, and being kept in such bareness and dirt as you need not guess. Will you ask him to be your friend to procure such things as I greatly need, and that in the most secret way, to be in the cell when I arrive? And if he can be there himself for my better aid I shall be grateful the

while I live.

Your fri - VENETIA.

        The letter ended thus with a broken word, not as though she had written all that she might, but as being hindered by lack of space on the torn sheets which may have been all she had.

        Angelica read it twice, saying nothing the while. She had pity at what she read, which she did not doubt, but her heart sank that they were to be so troubled again. When she spoke, it was at first only to say: "It is Arabic book," as she turned the paper, which had been good, but was soiled and torn, and had a brown smear at one place, as of recent blood.

        "You will do what she asks?" Francisco enquired, as one who hoped but was less than sure.

        "She asks more than enough, and some things that she cannot

        "You mean that you will not be her friend at so great a need?" "I meant less. But she must not teach what we shall do. Do you see that she asks your honour, if not your life, that she may cover her own show? - which, I will allow, may be evil enough."

        "I see no great risk, if it be shortly revealed, as she must mean it to be."

        "She asks what she does not say, that you will draw your men back from the guns. How would you answer for that?"

        "It would be but a short time, and a little space."

        "Which would be too far and too long. . . . It is time of war. She must find courage to face her shame."

        "You think little of her." His face showed the misery of his doubt of what she might have endured.

        "You are wrong in that. I will do all that I can that is not hurtful to you, who have gone too near to wreck for her once, which should be enough. . . . She is less than wise for herself at times, being too careful about her fears."

        "I should say that she has had high courage, and evil use."

        "Which may be true, and yet I may not have said wrong. . . . I will help you in this (unless I change with more thought) on one bargain alone. I must let Sir Oliver know that she is likely to come, bringing news from the Turkish camp."

        "It was of my honour you talked. What should I have left if you do that?"

        "You would have all that is yours now. How could you lose it by me?"

        "She trusts me that I will not disclose."

        "You were to tell me."

        "And none else."

        "But if I do? Could she charge you with that? I think your wits go when you deal with her."

        "Then I will say that it is my trust in you which you cast aside."

        "Francis, will you hear sense? Have I failed you before? I will only say that she may come, and not when or where. It might be the saving of all (and not least of her) if she should be discovered by chance while she had not been able to disclose herself in her own way."

        "Well, if you are so resolved, I cannot prevent. We must trust to you."

        Angelica disliked that he should link Venetia's name with his own in the common "we", more than anything that had yet been said, but it was not a feeling which she elected to show. "I will do what I can," she said, "but I think her ways to be such that they bring more trouble to those around than she has herself, and that might be called enough."

        She saw Francisco frown at this, which, she became aware as she spoke, had an ungenerous sound, Venetia having suffered so much as her letter showed. She asked: "Am I shrew? Yet I am one to help, as you may have found me before. And if it be more for you than for her (we being so close of blood) you must forgive me for that."

        Francisco looked at her in a confused humour which he could not have explained to himself had he tried (which it was sure he would not).

        "You are not shrew," he said, "nor unkind. You are the one aid that we have. But you do things in your own way, as you ever would."

        He went at that, and had he been asked if he were sorry or glad he would have felt it hard to reply.

        Venetia lived. That was good. She was coming back. That was good, too. She brought a hope that she might win pardon, from which his own hopes rose to a new height. She would be here, and La Cerda dead. It should not be beyond him to win her love. He had more pride than conceit of his own worth, but he knew himself to be of a great name, and a great wealth. He had proved he could be her friend, and it was to him that she looked in her present need. There was much in that. He might not be vain of himself, and yet hope she would soon be his, she being cast off by La Cerda's death from a place that had seemed high and secure a few months before, when Malta had not called its victims from every land. . . . But then he thought of what her letter had said. There had been the rack, which could leave men and women crippled beyond repair, though it was not often used to so great extreme. There had been tortures she would not write. And she was now such that she would not be seen except by those she could not avoid. That might be from no worse than dirt, or garments missing or fouled or torn. . . . It was vain to guess. He must wait, striving neither to fear too much, nor to hope too high.

        Angelica went to Sir Oliver, who was busy with many cares, and whom there were those who waited to see, not being able to go in by her door.

        "I have something to say, if you are not too deeply sunk in matters of greater weight."

        "I am not so much that I will not listen to you, let it be on what subject it may, so that La Cerda's mistress do not return."

        "But it is of her that I come to speak."

        Sir Oliver raised eyebrows of half-humorous resignation, and then showed his more serious mood in the tired sigh of a man who was weary with work which would never cease.

        "Well, I must hear. What is it now? She is a cork that will never sink."

        "She was caught in the Turkish lines. She has been racked, and had other pains, I know not for what cause. I have to ask this. If she can escape, bringing information you should be grateful to have, will she be received in the right way?"

        "How do you know?"

        "I cannot say that. I am pledged not."

        "Has Francisco been changing letters with her? Will he never learn? She will be his death. . . . I must warn you now that if he helped her escape (of which there has been debate, but there is no proof, so it blew away) he is in more jeopard than she."

        "I am assured he did not, for he told me that, and I am one to whom he would be unlikely to lie. Nor has he written to her, nor known where she was, as I have his word, and a better proof."

        "It is well for him. But he knows now?"

        "If you would not ask what I cannot say?"

        "There is no need to say. It is plain without words."

        "He was to tell no one but me. You will see how I must stand if I say more."

        "But if she makes such query as that - "

        "You misconceive. It is not she, it is I who ask."

        "And I must know more, or refuse reply. Do you ask with Francisco's consent?"

        "I can tell you this. He has had a letter from her, which he had not sought. We took counsel on that, and he agreed that I should ask what I now have."

        "You could tell more. How will she get his reply?"

        "I have said all that I can."

        "Then I will answer this far, and no more. She will be wise to come back, being in such hands, by any means that she may. Being so returned, if she can bring knowledge of great avail, such as the point where they will next make their attack, she will have done service for which we pay. But she must find no promise in that."

        "I do not get much."

        "Nor do you give with a free hand. . . . I will tell you this. Whatever tale she may bring, we shall not be quick to believe. For a matter of weight would not be opened to her, nor would I trust her at any time."

        Angelica looked as though a new thought had troubled her mind. "You think her one who would betray those of her own faith?"

        "Her own faith? What is that. . .? If she come back, I suppose she will betray the Turks rather than us, for reasons easy to see. . . . But I do not trust her at all."

        Angelica, considering this conversation, felt that she had done well. She had given Venetia any help that she could, which might not be much, but she had not been active for her. She had cleared Francisco of having been in secret communication with her, or having aided in her escape, and as to this letter he had now had, Sir Oliver must allow that he had been promptly informed, and also that Venetia purposed return.

        It was not all - it might not be enough for Francisco's defence - if it should afterwards be disclosed that he had disposed his men rather to enable her to gain his cell unobserved than with a single thought for his battery needs, as his duty was, but it was all she could do. She turned her thoughts to supplying Francisco's cell with such comforts as a woman would most urgently need who would come from torture and dirt. She had to use some circumspection in this, and she must visit the battery more than she wished, besides sending a valise to Francisco which was not to be opened except by him.

        She blamed herself that she did these things with so poor a will, thinking of that which she supposed Venetia must have endured, but her feelings were less easy to rule than were acts and words.

CHAPTER XX

        THE oars moved with long, slow, silent strokes, the muffled blades making no more sound than would be concealed by the lapping of the water on the sea-wall, or the wind would carry away.

        The night was dark, and Venetia, sitting in the bow of the boat, could see no more than the dim outline of St. Angelo's towers rising blackly against the sky.

        Hassan himself sat at her side. He leaned forward, his eyes searching the night. His presence there may be held for proof of the reckless-seeming courage which had made his name one that the world knew, but there was calculation in what he did.

        "You must go slowly," she whispered, "and give me time. It is hard to be exact here, but we cannot be greatly wrong."

        "If you fail," he said, "there will be no mercy from me. There shall not be less than one death." His bare scimitar lay at his hand, of which he had warned her before. She was not in a great dread as to that, thinking that she could guide him aright; but it was a threat that she may have required to control her mind to his own will, for she became aware, as the moment neared, that she disliked that which she came to do, more than she thought that she would. Nor was she clear as to what its consequences were likely to be, for she had been plain to him that if the battery should be entered they would be (as it seemed to her) no nearer to the entering of St. Angelo's towers. They would have no more than a place they could not hold for an hour, nor with hope to escape alive when the light should come.

        "That," he had said, "is quite clear. Guide the boat there, and do what is agreed when we arrive, and your part is through. I mean no more than to be there for a short time."

        Yet if that were true (and she could not see how he could hope to do more), for what use were the boats, laden with men, that she had seen when they embarked, and which were now following silently in their rear? For the battery was beneath and outside the citadel wall, being built on the narrow space between wall and shore.

        Francisco was to be caught (so she had been told) and his guns quickly destroyed. There was no design beyond that. And he was needed to save the life of Candelissa's son, whom Marshal Couppier had caught, and was proposing to hang, according to the way of this war. 'They would be exchanged, and she would have won her reward with less harm to her own race than they might deserve, seeing how they had treated her.

        But that fleet of boats, small though they were, and bearing no such number of men as had been in those that Francisco's guns had shattered before, showed that there was a further purpose, of which she had not been told. Well, could she help that? Her first care must be for her own neck. She had no wish to have that scimitar drawn across it, Hassan having shown her, in an idle way, how keen was the shining blade, so that it could sever a cushion which had been thrown into the air. . . .

        She could not be greatly wrong if she guided them under the shadow of the main tower, and not too much to the left, by which they would have come to the little quay where the boats were moored - the quay from which she had made escape. If she should go too much to the right, there would be more open sky over the boom which closed the inner harbour that lay between St. Angelo and the Sanglea. . . . She had used all her arts during the past week, and thought she had now some place in Hassan's regard, so that he might be more inclined to keep than to send her away, but she knew he would have no ruth if she should fail now, or if she should not use her voice to betray. . . .

        Francisco leaned on the wall, listening into the night, with Angelica at his side. They were intent to watch, for it was close to the time that Venetia had said. The men who should have been stationed around the guns had been withdrawn by Francisco's orders. They lay asleep, or diced by the light of a hanging lamp in their shelter at the battery's rear.

        "It is wonder," Angelica said, "that she can handle a boat alone to find her way here in the night (and so that she can say at what time she will come), and that the more that she has been racked and hurt as she says. Nor is it easy to think that she has found those in the Turkish camp who will row her here."

        "She is not simple to thwart," Francisco replied. "We do not know how she escaped from prison before."

        Angelica made no answer to that, thinking it easy to guess, though she would have guessed wrong. She supposed that it had been with the aid of Francisco's gold, though that might be more than himself knew. She said: "Well, it will soon be shown. . . . What should you do if she should appear with a crew of men, and we here alone?"

        "Is it likely she would? But, even then, there is the parapet to he scaled, and my own men are not far."

        "Well, I would it were done."

        "So do I. . . . Is that not a boat? Out to the right? Can you not see?"

        As he spoke, the great clock of San Lorenzo Church sounded a double stroke, that came clearly through the silent calm of the night, and they knew that the hour had come.

        At the same moment, hearing that sound, Hassan said, in his own tongue, which Venetia could not understand: "Pull in now. Pull hard, for the time is short."

        The two men at the oars quickened their strokes, and the boat came fast out of the night.

        "That is she," Francisco said, and there was excitement in his voice which, to Angelica, was not pleasant to hear. "She has not come with a large crew. There is one at her side, and two who row."

        So it was. The boat grounded a short distance away. The man who was beside Venetia jumped quickly out, and helped her ashore. The rowers sat where they were. Venetia came forward with the one man at her side. There was no menace in that, though there might be a puzzle as to why they did not push off, having put her ashore. So Angelica said.

        "They wait only to see that she is safely received," Francisco supposed.

        Well, so it might be, though she saw little sense in that. It was at least certain that it was Venetia who approached, and, by the way she walked, it appeared that she had not been racked enough to make her slow over the stones.

        Hassan was not far behind, having a delicate choice to make. He did not know that he might not be greeted with a volley of arquebus balls, which would be likely to shorten a life for which he had future use. But he had resolved to take this chance in a cool mind, and he would not shrink. If he let Venetia go alone, how would he be sure that she would speak the right words? He resolved that it would be best to follow closely behind. If there were a volley to come, he would be as much covered by her as her smaller size would provide.

        Francisco leaned over the edge, and Venetia called from below: "How am I to come up?"

        "You must have a rope. There is no other way on this side."

        Their voices were guarded and low, for high overhead rose the great mass of St. Angelo's castle, and sentries watched from the wall.

        Francisco let down a looped rope. The parapet was not high; and, if she should come round to enter the battery from behind, that she would be seen or heard by the men was a likely thing.

        Venetia began to adjust the rope, and Hassan turned away as though his part were done, and he must go back. The two men in the boat began to haul on a rope which had been trailing through the water behind. Its other end was in one of the boats, loaded with men, which the darkness hid. As it tightened, it became a signal to them to pull in, which they were instant to do. Everything had been carefully timed. At ten minutes after the hour the Turkish batteries would open on every side, circling castle and town with an inferno of stabbing flame. But that was still six minutes away.

        Venetia came over the top. "Get me to the cell," she said, in a breathless way; "we will talk there."

        They crossed the gun platform, and entered Francisco's cell. They could not see that three boats, loaded with men, had come out of the night. They could not know that a dozen more were pulling toward the boom which it was Francisco's duty to protect with the battery's fire.

        The men were leaping out before the boats were aground. They had rope ladders with hooks, which they threw up to grip the ledge of the low parapet. They were up almost as soon as the hooks held, Hassan being one of the first.

        A voice calling through the night came down from the citadel wall. The commotion had been observed, but its cause was not easy to guess. The sentinel looked down into a darkness in which he thought that men moved, but, if there were hostile attack, why did not the battery show its need?

        The next moment he saw the flash of a pistol-shot on the platform below. He called his alarm and St. Angelo sprang alive. But the drama of Francisco's battery was played out before help could reach.

        Francisco had looked at Venetia as she had come to the light of the lamp that was in the cell. She had looked pale, and as one who had an excitement that strained control, but there might be no wonder in that. She showed no sign of what she said she had lately endured.

        Francisco, seeing her thus, turned to call his men back to their posts. "I will be," he said, "but a moment away."

        Venetia's order had been that she should keep him within the cell. This she tried to do, whether for his sake or her own would be hard to guess. But she did not succeed. "It is but a word," he said, "and I am with you again."

        Seeing him go, she followed, and Angelica followed her. They saw men clambering over the edge of the scarp. Francisco ran at them with his sword bare, shouting loud for the men who should have been lining the parapet to fling them back. A corsair's pistol flashed, but the ball went wide in the night. Francisco's sword thrust and killed, and it seemed that foes were round him on every side. Yet he was aware that most of them ran for the guns rather than him, and he guessed what they would do.

        Angelica heard Venetia's voice in her ear. "You can escape if you run now. But do not say you were warned by me. It would be my death. You were to be caught in the cell, and Francisco both."

        She had time to say this, for Angelica stood still, as though she would understand all before she would either remain or fly.

        "So you have done this," she said, and wonder was in her voice. But she did not know that Venetia had heard. She had left her side. Venetia knew that there was but one chance for her own life now, and that must be what the Turks would give to one who had partly failed. She had but a moment to run back to the wall, for Francisco's men were swarming in now, with Captain Antonio at their head.

        Antonio saw where Francisco fought with a savage fury which made him more than he would have been at another time, for he was aware in that moment's sight of how he had been fooled and shamed, and by whom it had been contrived. He cared not for his own life, having only a lust to kill, and it is a mood before which many will shrink aside.

        Antonio ran to his aid, and was shouted away. "Not to me. Guard the guns - the guns." He turned to that which he saw was the greater need.

        Angelica saw how Francisco fought, with two men at his front, and one working round to his side. This man made a thrust which might have found flesh, but that Francisco stumbled at the same time over one he had killed before. He came down with his left hand on the ground, and leapt up, facing them again. Angelica remembered, none too soon, that she was Don Garcio, wearing a sword. She ran then to her cousin's aid, feeling that it could not be used in a better way.

        The man who preferred to come sideward to those he fought saw that there was one at his own left side. He saw it in time to stay the stroke he would have aimed at Francisco's head, but it was half a second too late for his own avail. Angelica made a thrust under his arm which lacked the vigour which those should use who engage in such deadly play. The point struck the leather baldric, metal-studded, that crossed his side, and had no strength to go through. Feeling that she was foiled, and seeing that eyes and weapon came round to her, she pressed with her full strength. The point slipped off the edge of the belt, and drove in. She felt it sink soft and deep, and would have stayed it in revulsion of what she did, but the sudden strength she had used had done that which she could not change. Through ribs to heart, the keen blade had gone, and it was a dying man who slipped off her sword.

        She saw the convulsion that changed his face as he fell, in a flicker of ruddy light that passed over the scene, which was now fought in a red inconstant glare, such as might glow among fiends in a striving hell.

        Overhead, the cannon on St. Angelo's walls flashed and thundered into the night. The boom to leftward was lit up with red floating flares which its defenders had set alight to guide them in what they did. Along the line of the boom, swimmers fought in the water; men struggled to defend or capture the Turkish boats: axes laboured to break the boom.

        Round Francisco's guns, which should have been raking those boats with a fatal fire, Turk and Christian swayed and struggled in a force that was about equally strong and equally resolute to prevail.

        Had Francisco's garrison consisted of none but the twelve men he had had before, as Venetia had told Hassan, speaking truth as far as she knew, there could have been but one end. They would have all been slain, and the guns damaged beyond repair, for which Hassan's men had the spikes and hammers that this office required. But in the last week, the importance of the battery having been better perceived than had been the case before the Sanglea attack, the embrasures for the three smaller guns had been quickly built, and the garrison increased to three times what it had been at first.

        Turk and Christian met in numbers that nearly matched, and the strife might have gone on till few were living on either side; but Hassan saw that it could not be many moments before reinforcements would arrive, against which he could not hope to contend.

        To that extent, the surprise had failed, though it had given time for the boats to approach the boom without hurt from the battery fire. He was not one to ignore facts to his own death. He looked round to see what there was still time to do. He saw where Francisco fought, and Angelica at his side. He called those men who were near, and whom he could bring to heed in that confusion and din.

        Angelica heard Francisco's voice, as he spoke to her without turning his head: "You are mad to be here. You should get clear while you can."

        But Angelica had recalled that those who wear a man's dress are expected to do that which a man should. She stood with the dripping sword in her hand, resolute not to retire.

        Francisco had but one man facing him now. The other had backed away when his comrade fell to Angelica's sword, the odds changing in a way he did not approve. He had joined the rabble of those who fought round the idle guns. The man who remained was one who could fence with skill. Francisco found him harder to match now he was alone than when he had been one of a crowd. He had a curved scimitar which stabbed at times, and at others would sweep round with a whistling sound. He had a small round buckler on his left arm, which seemed to meet every thrust that the scimitar did not turn, as though it had a magnetic power. Francisco had his dagger out, making it what the buckler was to the Turk, having been trained in that way. It was a duel between those who had different techniques of strife, and might end in any way in that changing light, but Francisco found it too hard to risk turning his head.

        Angelica felt her arm seized, as though in a vice of steel. She looked into Hassan's eyes. With a quick effort, she changed her sword to her free hand. In another instant, his violence would have been repaid in a worse way, but other hands were around her now. She was dragged to the wall, crying for help that she did not get.

        A whistle shrilled through the strife, calling on the Turks to retire. Francisco felt the sharp pain of a slashed arm, and his opponent was gone. Angelica's voice came from the wall, doubtfully heard in the confused uproar of powder and steel, and the clamour of human cries.

        Spanish soldiers were crowding the platform now, from which the last Turks had gone who had legs to flee. Colonna, the head of the Spanish troops, came to where Francisco stood, and saw the fallen around his feet.

        "Senor," he said, "you have made a most stout defence."

        Francisco looked round. He looked down at a dripping sleeve. He asked: "Has she gone? Is she safe? She was here a moment before."

        Colonna thought him dazed by his wound, as perhaps he was.

        A voice said: "It is Don Garcio they have got. I saw them drag him away."

        Francisco made a quick step forward toward the wall. He seemed to slip on the blood-drenched ground, as it was easy to do. He fell forward, and did not rise.

        "Pick him up," Colonna said, "and bear him away. He is sore hurt."

CHAPTER XXI

        "BIND her hands," Hassan said. "She is quick to swim."

        Angelica was in a mood to have gone overside with her hands bound, trusting that her legs would get her to shore, but she had no chance to lose her life that way, for the man to whom Hassan spoke did his work well. He bound her hands with one end of a good rope, and kept a twist of the other round his own arm.

        The boat was fuller than it had been before, having two men to row, besides the one who was Angelica's guard. Venetia sat in the bow, where she had been before. Angelica was on a thwart in the midst.

        Hassan, in the stern, watched the scene he left, as the boat moved fast for a few strokes, being followed by arquebus balls from those who now had the battery to themselves, and could look round at their foes.

        But that peril was quickly past. The darkness covered them from the search of those whose eyes were in the half-lights of lantern and flaring pitch, and the flashing of frequent guns. The oars stayed at Hassan's word, and he looked back at the wide scene of tumult and fire which had not slackened because he had withdrawn, and those of his men who still lived tumbled out of the battery when his whistle blew, and had pushed off in boats that were round him now.

        He was not one to desert such a scene in a careless way. He ordered the oarsmen to turn somewhat toward the boom, that he might better see how the fight went.

        When he saw how it was, he said to himself: "The boom may be broken through, and the shipping taken or fired, and after that we shall have the Sanglea, and be near the end. But it will not be done on this night."

        He considered that it would be few moments now before Francisco's guns would commence to fire. He rowed boldly toward the boom, giving orders that the attack should cease. As they came into the more lighted space, the battery guns opened, firing across the front of the boom, as they had been first purposed to do. It seemed to Angelica that it would be a mere waste to consider where she would be on the next day. The boat could not endure, and she would have no chance of life with her hands tied as they were.

        But the boat did not sink, though a round-shot struck the water so closely that it was near to capsize. Waterlogged with the wave it took in, it struggled back into the darkness again, and was baled out by all hands that were free of the oars, except hers, which she could not use. Then it shaped its course to land somewhat south of the Sanglea, being the nearest point that Hassan could choose to come to his own camp. The noise of strife had not ceased at this time, but it was sinking on every side.

        Hassan considered the night's events, and, though the attack had failed, he was not wholly displeased. He had added one more to those calculated audacities of which men would talk in a way to augment his fame. He might not have done all that had been in his hopes, but he had stormed the battery that lay securely, as it had seemed, between the sea and the shelter of the citadel walls, and had rendered it impotent during those vital minutes when the boats were approaching the boom. He had a more personal satisfaction in that he had captured one who had outwitted him once before. He had fetched her out of the foemen's lines, where she might have seemed secure beyond any possible reach either of violence or guile. It should be a lesson which would be told through the years, warning those who would thwart his will. . . .

        Venetia sat by herself, with some fears which, for that moment at least, she need not have had. She knew that, had she kept Francisco within the cell for even two or three minutes more than she had been able to do, the battery would have been entered, and the guns destroyed before any alarm could have been raised. She knew also that the event would have gone differently had there been no more than the dozen men at call, which, as she had said and believed, were the whole garrison that Francisco had. She did not know whether Hassan would have judged her to have misled him as to the muster of men with deliberate craft, or to have let Francisco come out with a double thought that those of her own race should not be utterly wrecked; or, if he did not really believe, that he might find pretext in these events to deny reward, or even to punish with the ferocity that was the custom of his race and time.

        But Hassan thought in a clearer mind. To him, the essential part of the tale she told had been her assertion of influence over Don Francisco, so that he would obey her desire that none should see her arrive. That had been his great risk. Had she deceived him in that, or misconceived her power, as some women do, his own life would have been hard to save, and he had been resolved, in that event, that she should die first.

        But, on this vital point, she had proved right: and it was through the use of her power over Francisco that he had entered the battery and returned alive, after doing half his intent, and seizing the captive he most desired.

        He was too experienced in the ways of war to expect that all could be made to fall out to an exact plan.

        He would have said (had he talked on a matter to which, in fact, he paid little tribute of thought) that the fact that she had come back to his boat as she did was proof enough that she had not attempted to warn Francisco.

        So it may be taken to be, though, had she known how matters were likely to go, and in particular that Francisco had not twelve but two score of men within easy call, it may be a good guess that she would have spoken a warning word the first second that she was over the parapet edge, and so gained the name of one who had saved the battery at a great risk, if she could have made it appear in that way.

        But she had not known; and with the Turks swarming around, and her treason become plain to those two who had met her first, it had seemed that to get back to Hassan's boat, while the way was still clear, was the best chance that she had. . . .

        The boat grounded upon the stones, and Hassan, who had more urgent matters with which to deal, gave a short command: "You will take her," he said to Venetia, and looking at Angelica as he spoke, "to the house where you now are. She is to have her needs, but should she attempt to flee it will be her death, as it would be to any who would help her thereto."

        He gave such orders as left little hope or fear that Angelica would escape again. Her wrists remained tied, and the end of the rope was now in the hand of a mounted man. She must move at the horse's speed, but Hassan have given instructions that she should not be ill-used till he should be free to deal with her himself, so that she found the pace was easy to keep.

        That was well, for there were three miles to be walked on a rough way by one who had cause to be tired enough before that, but she gave no thought to how she might feel, whether wearied or light of limb, having too much grief of mind to be aware of the body's toil.

        Francisco was more likely dead than alive, and if not dead he was shamed (which might be thought worse) beyond hope of a good defence, by a wanton's wiles. He had betrayed his trust, and (if he were not dead) his life might be held forfeit by the usage of war, and he be judged to a shameful end. It would be better that he should have found death from a Turkish sword! So she came even to pray that it might have been. . . . If he were alive, she would not be there to plead his cause as it would be certain to need. . . . She saw that her capture might be laid to his door, and held to augment his guilt. She judged rightly enough that it would not make Sir Oliver more disposed to remain his friend. . . . And when she thought of how much she had told of Venetia's letter she had a fresh grief. Suppose it might not have been known, but for what she herself had said, that Venetia had been there? That even the fact that the battery had been deserted when the Turks scaled the scarp might not have been known or guessed? But she was sure that Sir Oliver would not leave it till now, till he had probed all to the lowest depth. Had her interference not only brought her here, but become the cause that would lead Francisco to shameful death? She forgot herself as she thought of the disgrace which would so surely be his. Or, if her thoughts came to herself, it was only that she must find some escape which would enable her to defend his part - to explain, to excuse, to plead, even to lie, if that would do him avail. . . . There must be a way. Had she not left a moving ship in the night for the open sea? Here on land there must - there must - be a simpler way.

        They gave Venetia a mule to ride, trusting her to a larger degree, at which Angelica was not surprised, remembering how she had played the traitor to her own friends. It was an old mule and slow, and, had Venetia reined it aside, it would have been quickly caught. But she took what courage she could from the favour it showed, and turned an agile mind to wonder what she could say to Angelica, or what would be said to her, she having betrayed her to such a trap. She had not supposed that, if Angelica were brought away, they would be put into the same place.

        The house to which they came was one of those which were scattered over the countryside, having been built by the wealthier knights for more ease in the summer heat than they could find in the crowded town, and at a time when none thought that the Turks would be bold enough to invade the land. It was built in the Italian style, on a ridge of rock, having a seaward view to the east, with a wide belvedere looking that way, and a garden below, which had been well-kept in its day but was now a riot of lawless bloom.

        It had been furnished in a luxurious style, which the invaders had abused, but it still had much of comfort for those who might be more concerned that they should lie soft than clean.

        Venetia made her way to a bedroom which had been hers for two nights before. She would have been content to have been single there, and would have gone quickly to rest, but Angelica was led in at her back, and the rope loosed, making her aware of how much it had hurt her wrists.

        Venetia spoke at once when they were alone, being one to show a bold face to that which she could not miss.

        "You will say I have brought you here; but it is what I did not intend."

        Angelica looked at her with cold eyes, as at something not worth contempt. But she would be just, as her way was. "No. You warned me to flee."

        Venetia had actually forgotten that she had done that. She thought that, after all, she had not much to excuse. She replied, in a more confident tone: "It was all I could; and I did that at a great risk. There is none around in this place who knows (as I suppose) the tongue we now speak, but I will ask you not to talk of it again. It might bring me to death."

        "It shall have no mention from me."

        "I have been hardly placed, and I would have you know that I am not less than your friend."

        "It is more than I should ask you to be."

        Angelica turned away as she spoke. She looked out into the night, where a moon rose. She saw the glitter of arms in the garden below, showing that there were those by whom the window was watched. She closed jalousies thereat.

        But Venetia would not be so lightly rebuffed. She opened battle again.

        "Are you so wroth . . .? It may be that you have not come to so great an ill. . . . I will tell you this. I did not write of my will. Hassan gave me that it should be. He stood there to read. Would you have your skin peeled while you live, from the feet up?"

        "It is not of myself I think. It is of one who gave you his trust. You have made him traitor, or naught, who stood well."

        "I could not do that. He is what God made him, not I."

        "You have likely compassed his death."

        "There are many deaths at this time. I had my own life to regard. And I may have saved yours."

        "Which you were not needed to do. And I should say it was safer before."

        "That is because you have not seen both sides of the wall. Hassan is not one who will fail. In the end, St. Angelo will go up in fire. Have you seen a town sacked? Well, I have not. But I have heard tales. Do you know what these pirates are? There would be a gutter red with your blood. Or, if they knew you for what you are. . . . It would not be to go to a quiet bed with one man, as you are now likely to do."

        "There are ways to die before that. But I will not talk. Your thoughts are not mine, and your words have no meaning to me. . . . But you have made a poor guess. The Turks will flee as the summer wanes, and the Cross of Christ will still fly."

        "You say what you desire. But I have learned to look more sharply than you. Does a tide not rise because it also retires? Do you not see that each time the Turks are thrown back they are closer in? They say in St. Angelo now: 'We have beaten the Turks again. Did we not see them leap over the battery scarp? Did they not run for the shore?' But would they have reached to there a month past? It would not have been thought. But ever they close in. They are a cord which is drawn more tight till the breath goes. They are a water that rises to overwhelm."

        "It is vain to talk. We have different tongues."

        Venetia had been throwing off her clothes as she spoke. She answered: "Well, there is one thing you can understand. You should come to bed. The lamp will not last. I suppose you can see that. I will have more oil for another night, if I can contrive that, for the dark is what I have never loved."

        Angelica asked in a bitter tone: "You boast that you see much. Do you see yourself as you are?"

        Venetia was bare now. She looked in a long mirror against the wall, which was cracked, but still good enough,, in the smoky light of a poor lamp, to show her that which it gave her pleasure to see.

        "So I do," she said, "I was not made to be peeled, but for better work; which it may be your business to learn. . . . There are no shifts in this place. . . . I have thrown out the flax, which was soiled: we must lie in wool."

        There was one bed in the room, of ample size, into which she got as she spoke: "Will you not come? You should rest while you can, and you are more fit for the next day. I have learnt that in harder ways than you have been likely to know."

        "We are not for one bed."

        "Then has God made you a fool! Will you not sleep, and when you wake you can talk venom again? I know not why I am so vexed. You care nothing for me. You would have had me skinned with a quiet mind. And I gave you warning you would not heed, in the only minute I had."

        Angelica said: "I am fool indeed. You have found the word." Her laughter, sudden and short, sounded strange to her own ears

        She drew off some of her clothes, though not all, being in those of a man, and lay down in the harlot's bed.

        After that, Venetia was soon asleep, being wearied, and having a conscience at ease. She had done what she could for peace, using words which convinced herself, if Angelica were less easy to move.

        "She is stubborn, ignorant fool," she thought, as her eyes closed. "I know not why I care as I do."

CHAPTER XXII

        ANGELICA slept late, as the young may when emotion has tired the mind. She waked to the sound of horse-hooves on the gravel below. Memory came back with the sight of Venetia, who had waked earlier, and dressed with care, in other clothes than those she had worn in the night. She had opened the jalousies wide to the morning sun. She looked out at the sound.

        "There is Hassan here," she said. "You should rise, unless you will that he see you thus. He will be here for you more than for me, as I hope."

        So she did, being still unsure of whether he would approve of what she had done.

Angelica rose in some haste. She saw herself to be ruffled and soiled, which no woman would choose to show, though she may walk in a man's dress.

        Venetia said: "There is water here, if you will." There was no doubt that she would be friend, if she could. She gave help unasked, and her movements were light and sure.

It was a short time before one of Hassan's men entered the room, without delaying for leave. He looked at Angelica, and said something in a tongue that was strange to her, but Venetia could understand.

        "You are to go below," she said. "I am not for now. . . . It seems," she added, a sudden jealous doubt crossing her mind, "that he could have but short sleep till he must see you again."

        Angelica said: "I could have spared him a longer time." Her heart was cold with a fear which she would not show, courage rising to meet her need.

        She followed the man down, and found Hassan to be seated on the couch of a salon which had been luxurious once, but of which the furniture had been booted about, and which had not been cleaned since its owner fled.

        Seated thus, in a western way, he reminded her, in spite of his different dress, of the Rinaldo she had first met at her uncle's board. He may have thought of her as she had been at that time, but his thoughts were not always easy to guess.

        "So," he said, with a smile that she did not like, "you have come to me again."

        "I know not," she answered, "why you should go to such trouble to have me here," and was conscious of the futility of the words, even before they were wholly out.

        "Well," he said, "as to that, it was not much. And why you are here you may soon learn. But, as I think, you had a wet sword."

        "Do you blame me for that? I struck for my cousin's life "

        "Which it was your business to save? But it is mine to see that you kill no more, for I have lost a good man."

        "I have no wish to use sword, at which I have no skill."

        "You have little skill, and less strength. But if you trade as a man, you must pay debts in his coin. . . . Marshal Couppier catches our men, and they hang in his market square. Do you suppose we like that, or that we shall treat those we catch in a better way?"

        "I did not make the customs of war, which I would change if I could. But I suppose that they had no gold."

        "They would have been worth gold to sell. I say not to your price." He looked at her with eyes that narrowed in an insolent doubting way. "Are you virgin still, after your time in that dress?"

        She looked back with an anger that forgot fear. She had a mind not to answer; and then thought that silence would be misjudged. "I am unwed, which should be sufficient reply. But it is nothing to you. I have gold to pay."

        "That is well. But there is another matter between us two, which must be balanced before you go. How will you do that?"

        "I do not know what you mean."

        "There are your cousin's ships, which I should have had but for you."

        "It is of him I would know. Can you tell me if he was slain when I was taken away?"

        "It is likely enough, but it is more than I chanced to see. I did not ask you of that."

        "I will pay for a true tale."

        "You can have that without gold. It will all be known in the next hour. But you must think now of that which I asked before. How will you get me the ships?"

        "You know I cannot do that."

        "But it is what you must, or else pay as you will not like."

        "It is wild to ask. Do you think I would betray them to you? I am not as - "

        "No. You would be worth less if you were. You are better bred. And you would have me think that you differ in other ways. But, if you show a stiff neck, you may come to the same port. . . . Now I will tell you what I will do. I will set your ransom at 3,000 ducats of gold. That is fair, for you would be worth a high price at Damascus mart, and still more if they should send you further away. You can be set free for that sum. But I must have the ships first, for it is by such means that men will know that I am not one of whom others can make a jest. If I have the ships, you can go free when the ransom is paid, which, in your case, I suppose could be quickly arranged. . . . But if I have not the ships, you have done that which your back must pay. You will be stripped and whipped in a public place, for that is what my honour requires; and after that you will heal, and be worth no less than you now are, and you will be sold in the best market the merchants advise. . . . And when I so resolve, I deal with you in a most merciful way. . . . Dragut would have had you set on an upright stake, for much less than you did, where you would have waited to die."

        Angelica thought: "You would have no ships by my word, if I had the power, which it is plain that I have not got." But she checked her speech, for if she might gain no more, the discretion of silence might win some delay, and it was on escape that her mind was set. She said: "I must know first how my cousin fared."

        "Do you think you can give orders to me . . .? But you shall know that." He smiled at his own thought.

        He said to the man who stood by, and who had understood nothing of this talk: "Take him back, and see that he is guarded with care, for he is one of those for whom men hang, if they get free."

        She was returned to the upstairs room, where she found Venetia was back on the bed. Under her pale-gold head her hands met in a way she had. She had been thinking of herself, in whom she was most concerned, but she had had a thought of Angelica too, and when she saw that her companion showed no disposition to speak, she addressed her with words that had a sharp edge, although they were said in a smiling, indolent way.

        "If we are to be shut here, as we have not sought, there must be one of us who has sense, if not more, and I will give you words that are plain and true.

        "If I am one who is shown a rack, I will say all that I can to keep my joints as they are, being those for which I have the first care. If you have things which you would not have me tell, being so abused, hey are best kept in your own mind while we are here. But can you understand that I can be weak to that point, and be still your friend of my will, and one to aid in the smaller things?"

        "You have brought one I love to his death, or worse. Can I put that by?"

        "I do not know that I have, nor, I think, do you. Will you let me call it a coward's guess, which I had not thought you to be? But you should consider that what I did, if you call it the worst you may, was not of malice either to him or you, whom I would more lightly have helped, being those who have friended me, of whom there have been too few in the right way.

        "As I told Hassan when we talked, it is some days back, I do not seek to bring others to wreck, but for a harbour I cannot find. Have you the will to see that?"

        "You are one, by your own words, to bring your friends to wreck for your own gain, and it is a thing for which they will not love you the more."

        "So I am. And so, I suppose, are many more, or I have watched the world with worse sight than I think I have. But did I ask you for love? I ask you to make common accord, being two in a place of foes. For if you think more of what is past than of that which now is, you are naked to every wind."

        Angelica saw that there was some sense in that, but she thought that if two are alone in a world of foes it is a common trust that they both need, and trust was that which Venetia would never have from her again. But it was useless to say. What she said was: "I am not one in whom hate is a strong plant, but you have brought me to bitter dole. . . . Can you show me way to get free? I would give you more gold for that than I suppose you have seen in your life days."

        "I would do much for that gold, and something for you, but my skin has a closer claim. Do not speak of it again." And then she added, in so low a voice that Angelica scarcely caught the words: "Unless I speak of it to you."

        Angelica understood that Venetia feared, even in that room alone, lest they might be talking for other ears. A faint hope stirred in her heart. Venetia might have a plan which she was too cautious to share. It might be true that she might lose more than she yet had (and there was no margin for that) if she should refuse to meet Venetia on the ground she offered. . . . But she was not one who would feign what she did not feel. . . . 'Forgive us, as we forgive - ' The divine prayer came to her mind. But she had heard it said that such forgiveness is only required to be given to those who ask. Well, had not Venetia asked? Perhaps, scarcely that. . . . She would try to forgive, but to trust was more than even Heaven would ask her to do. . . . Venetia was speaking again.

        "If you will say what he said, I may tell you what it was worth, for I have watched his moods and his ways, even while he thought he was learning me."

        "You can know that, if you will. He said first that I could be ransomed for 3,000 ducats of gold."

        "That is how they begin. You will proffer one, or else less, and in the end he will take two."

        "I did not bicker thereon."

        "Then you are not one who should manage your own affairs. You are not (if you will forgive a plain word) worth half the price in any market there is."

        "I am not to sell. If any gave that for me, he would wish his gold back in his own pouch. . . . But he required something else which he will not get. He will have our two ships, which he says he would have won on the seas had I not been there."

        "How can he get them?"

        "So I said. It is vain talk. If they were mine to give, they should not be his. And if I would, it is a thing which the Grand Master would not allow in a session of war."

        "He must know that. He does not mean you to go."

        "Yet I must. I must find a way."

        "Did he say what he would do if the ships are not to be made his?"

        "I am to be beaten, and then sold."

        Venetia considered this with a frown she was not careful to smooth away.

        "You are not to sell, as you said. You were right in that. He will have the ships, or else you. . . . Did I not say that my harbour is still to seek?"

        "You will not lose it by me, if you mean that. .. . And I should say you misdeem. Would he beat one who had his regard, in a public way?"

        "That he would. He would think you better for that, as a trained horse is worth more than one that is not broken to ride. . . . But you need not fret greatly thereon, for he will not have you beaten more than will heal and will leave no scar. . . . It is queen you may be of all the Barbary coast in a year from now."

        Angelica looked at a window which had been open last night, and might be opened again. There might be guards stationed below, but men doze in the night. . . . To drop suddenly, and to run. The height was not so great that she might not come down on her feet. . . . And a poor chance is much better than none. . . . She must watch for hers.

        The man who had come to the door before entered again. He said something which she could not understand. Venetia interpreted: "He says it has been learned from the Christian lines that Don Francisco has a wound in the arm, but is not mortally hurt."

        Angelica's glance wandered to the window again.

CHAPTER XXIII

        THE Grand Master held inquisition of the events of the night. The storm had fallen before the dawn. The boom had been damaged, but not forced. Attacks had been repulsed that had been made on the land side of the Sanglea, and round the Bourg. There was nothing left but to repair damage, to count the slain, and to judge how praise or blame should be given out.

        Pompea Colonna had come to Malta in command of four hundred of the Spanish soldiers who had been enlisted when the first peril was known. These men had been lost in strife, or scattered at different posts, till there were not more than a hundred he could array. He had been sent with these to the battery's aid, when it was known that the Turks were over the scarp and its guns were still.

        "We ran in haste," he said, "but we did nothing when we arrived, for there was nothing to do. We saw the flight of a beaten foe."

        It was generously said. He went on to tell how he had seen Don Francisco fall in the midst of those that his hands had slain, of whom (as he did not know) Angelica should have been thanked for the death of one.

        "Yet I see not," the Grand Master said, "how the Turks made so swift a surprise that no alarm could be called till they were over the scarp, if a watch were kept as it was duty to do."

        "Don Francisco has the name of one who watched his charge, and would seldom sleep." The words came from a knight of Castile, who felt that all Spaniards should stand as one against the Italian knights who were of more numbers than they.

        "So he had," the Grand Master allowed, though with a thought that there had once been a woman found where she should not be. "So he had. But what does he say now?"

        "He cannot be asked at this time," Sir Oliver answered. "There is report that his fever is high."

        "Then we will hear what Captain Antonio has to say."

        Captain Antonio was quite ready to talk.

        "I was not on duty," he said, "Don Francisco himself taking the night watch, as he would most often prefer. But I was alert, having been warned that there might be a special need."

        His words waked the sharp attention of all who heard.

        "Warned by whom?" the Grand Master asked.

        "By Don Garcio, as - he - was called. He came to the battery in the late day, when I was in command, and, we having some words, he said that, if he were I, he would be alert for the night, it being without a moon in its first hours, and so inviting surprise."

        "Were they no more than words of an idle kind, or did you think that he spoke with a special cause?"

        "With a special cause, as I thought, so that I did not unbelt my sword."

        "We must know more of this," the Grand Master said. . . . "You say you were there with speed. What did you first see?"

        "There was bicker along the scarp, where the Turks came tumbling over the parapet at all parts; and Don Francisco, being nearly alone, was thrusting to force them back. I would have run to his support, but he shouted to me to let him be, and to guard the guns."

        "So you went on to them?"

        "So I did, with the men that came up with me. . . . There was lively flurry around the guns, to which the most of the Turks ran, having purpose to knock them out, in which they did not prevail."

        La Valette looked at him, as he said this, in a more regardful way than before. He saw that one side of his face was black with a great bruise.

        "You had a knock yourself," he said. "Are you much hurt?"

        "It is naught. I came clear enough, as I often do, being more hard to hit than a larger man."

        "Were the whole of the men engaged by this time that you got up?"

        "Except those who had been asleep, as their right was at that time. They came tumbling out, as I suppose, with but short delay, for it was soon that they were all there, but at that time I was at no leisure to see."

        He went on to tell how he had got the guns to work as the Turks fled, so that they had done their part at the last in driving the boats away that attacked the boom, of which there would have been more sunk had they not fled under St. Michael's fort, and so to the farther shore, skirting the palisades that ran up the centre of the inlet of the Sanglea, and getting some protection from them.

        "I can see," La Valette said, "that you did your part. But this is a matter on which the whole is not said. If Don Francisco is not able to speak, we must have this - Garcio, was it? - by whom you were warned."

        "That," Antonio replied, "I suppose to be more than you can, for there is talk that the Turks bore him away."

        Sir Oliver's voice broke in sharply: "Why do you say that?"

        "It is so believed. It is what I did not see, being concerned with those who were round the guns. . . . But it is sure that she was there when the fight began, and was not seen after that."

        "Why do you say she?" the Grand Master asked.

        "It was a most careless word, but I may suppose that I have done no great wrong, it having chanced as it has."

        "It is Don Francisco's cousin," Sir Oliver said to the Grand Master, bringing the truth back to his mind, and then to Antonio: "Why was this not reported before?"

        "So I tried to do for two hours, but those who might have heard have been busy with larger things."

        There was a new gravity in La Valette's face as he said: "This is evil news, if it be true. There are few I would be less willing to think in those devils' hands." And then his mind went to the core of the problem to ask: "Was she always there during the night?"

        "No," Antonio answered, "as I believe, never before. I suppose she was there for her cousin's help, having some reason to fear what the night might bring."

        "You are sure," Sir Oliver asked, "that she was there . . .? Sure of that which you did not see?"

        "There were those who did. She was there when the fight began. It is said she pushed in to her cousin's aid, he being hardly beset, and using her sword somewhat to his relief. And after that there are those who say that she was dragged over the wall when the Turks fled."

        "It seems," the Grand Master said, weighing what he had heard in a careful mind, "that there was no absence of watch, but rather a special care, from what cause it may be hard to enquire. We must suppose that the Turks came with a bold and most sudden rush, or some subtle ruse, and were most gallantly met, by which valour the guns were saved."

        But Sir Oliver said, with a grimmer look than he often had, "By your leave, I will enquire when Don Francisco is able to speak."

        The Grand Master saw there was more on his mind than he was open to say. "So you shall, Oliver," he replied, "we will leave it so. . . . But I am grieved for one who should not have been here, as we have said before now. She has served Malta well, and if you can find that she still lives, and we can make any exchange, it shall not be grudged - or if payment of gold will do, it must in reason be found if she be poor in her own right."

        "She is not that. She can find ransom enough," Sir Oliver replied, "if that will suffice." He asked Captain Antonio to bring those who had seen Angelica to be examined by him in the next hour.

        He caused enquiry to be made through the pursuivants who were passing between St. Angelo and the Turkish camp to arrange for exchange of wounded and removal of dead, and other business such as will ever follow a day of strife, asking if one Don Garcio had been taken prisoner in the attack on the battery, for he had a hope that Angelica might not be discovered for what she was.

        He had a reply before night. It said that Angelica (giving her all the titles she had in her own name) was in Hassan's hands, and could be ransomed within two days for 3,000 ducats of gold, which could be paid in bills of exchange (in a form which was in common use in the ransomings of that day, for which there was a clearinghouse in Amsterdam to which all nations would make resort), and also the two galleons which Don Francisco had brought from Spain. If these were delivered within the time, she would be returned in safety and honour. If the ransom should be more laggardly paid, it would be no less in amount, and she would be delivered in the condition in which she might be at the time.

CHAPTER XXIV

        IT was late that night, after the Grand Master had disposed of some larger things, that Sir Oliver was able to say: "And there is also the matter of Don Manuel's niece."

        He mentioned her in that way to remind the Grand Master of the old friendship he had, but it was without hope, for what was there that could be done?

        "Then it is true she was caught? What ransom do they require?"

        "Three thousand ducats is named."

        "That is absurd. They must come down."

        "So they might. But they ask something beside. They will have the two galleys that Don Francisco brought."

        "Do they think us mad, or are they? It is not Mustapha's way to jest in such manner as that."

        "It is not he. Hassan claims that she was his prey. The ransom, as I conclude, would be gain to him."

        "Even so, it is foolish jest. What does it mean?"

        "It is not a jest without point. It was through her that the galleys were saved out of Hassan's hands."

        "So I recall. It was boldly done. Is he seeking revenge for that?"

        "So I suppose. He cannot think the galleys will be given to him."

        "In what time must we reply?"

        "In something less than two days. After that, the offer is not withdrawn but we must be content to take her as she may then be, without reduction of price."

        "Meaning that she will be racked or raped?"

        "So we must think. I see not what can be done, unless we could offer such exchange that they could not refuse assent."

        The Grand Master pondered this. "There is Candelissa's son. Couppier has him. There is a bargain there to be made, but we should have much more than one girl. . . . If it be two galleys for her, it should be all Hassan's fleet for him. . . . She should not have come, or should have been sent back at the first."

        "She has done a man's part, if not more. You must think of that."

        "So she has. She is of good blood. And if she be martyred now, as it seems she must, it will not be for naught, she having taken these galleys from Hassan's clutch; and if she be tormented therefor, there should be joy in the courts of God, and much comfort for her when the short time of trial is past and done."

        "Shall I offer Yusef? - Candelissa's son?"

        "Not surely for her alone! We can do better than that. . . . But I will leave it to you. I am less hard than you think. She is one I would gladly save. But it is my part to bring Malta through."

        "I will bargain the best I can," Sir Oliver answered, feeling that he had gained more than he could fairly have hoped, having all left in his hands.

        La Valette turned to go, and came back. "Oliver," he asked, "have you thought it strange that she should be there to be taken by Hassan's hands, and he at the right spot? She is one, it seems, that he was singly anxious to have. Was it often that she would be thus exposed, even outside the strength of our walls . . .? And she with premonition of that which came, as is shown by the warning to - to him with the battered face?"

        "To Captain Antonio. Yes, I have thought much. She had a place assigned on my own part of the wall, which I could not avoid, she having come with a man's name. But she stood high over the strife, even on the day of the Sanglea assault. When I sent her to take her place, she was in no danger, unless, it might be, from a flying fragment of stone. . . . But the battery was where she had no business to be, nor was ever there, as I am now told, except when she followed me on the day La Cerda's mistress was there revealed, and on this midnight of strife. . . . It is what I will probe more than I have yet done."

        "It is Don Francisco's report we must have, and make inquisition straitly thereon. Is he equal to that?"

        "He was not today, but of tomorrow there is more hope."

        "Was he sore hurt?"

        "His arm was slashed to the bone. He lost blood. The fever was high, but is now less. . . . He made, as they say, a most gallant fight for his guns' defence."

        "So he would. He has done badly and well, so that it is hard to resolve. There was that woman he hid. And now the Turks should not have been over the edge, and he single to drive them back, as the tale sounds. And again there is a woman where she should not be, though I would not join her name with the first. But, apart from these, he had done better than well. . . . Oliver, if it were not too near to a Moslem thought, I would doubt if there can be Heaven where women come."

        He went out at that word, leaving Sir Oliver to reflect that there could be Hell where no women were, as in that boiling cauldron of strife which he fed and stirred; and that there was one he would save if he yet could.

        He sent a pursuivant on the next day to Hassan, saying that Yusef (whom he mentioned that Marshal Couppier was very anxious to hang) would not be returned alive if Angelica were dishonoured or harmed, and proposing that they should talk of terms in a serious way, which he implied that they had not yet begun. He sent also to Marshal Couppier, asking that Yusef should be cherished with care, knowing that the guerrilla leader had bitter and implacable moods. And having done these things, and others which it is needless to write, he went to the hospital on the north side of the Bourg, where Francisco was nursed.

        Francisco lay on a pallet bed, in a ward with a dozen more, for wounded men were easy to find around St. Angelo's walls at this time, and even those of good blood (as so many were) must be content to be herded thus, if they were to have the best physicians around their beds. He looked up at Sir Oliver with eager impatient eyes. He had outfought the fever of the first hours, and the resilience of healthful youth was bringing vigour back to his weakened blood.

        He half rose, and sank back, cursing the arm which he had for a moment forgotten, and which reminded him of its needs in its own way.

        "They will tell me naught," he said bitterly, "naught at all. It is not this wound by which I am fevered and vexed. It is to learn that which I am not told. Why must men lose all other sense from their heads when they profess the curing of wounds?"

        "If you will be quiet," Sir Oliver replied, "and act as you say you are, I will tell you more than the physicians would be likely to do."

        "Then I will ask first - were the guns saved?"

        "They were not only saved, they were used on a flying foe, Captain Antonio having been stout to belabour the Turks, and then active to run them out."

        "You would not be here with a light cause," Francisco shrewdly observed, and his eyes showed his second fear. "Is Angelica hurt?"

        "She was not hurt that I know. But there are things I must ask of you, if you are fit to reply. Did you expect the Turks to come on that night?"

        "I had no thought that they would, or they had been met at first in a warmer way."

        "Yet it seems that your cousin did. Can you say why?"

        "I should say she should answer that."

        "So she should. But, for the present, it cannot be asked."

        "But you said she was unharmed?"

        "That was true. If you will take it in a quiet way, and believe that there is no ill that we may not yet be able to cure, I will tell you all that I know, and after that I will ask you to tell me some things I have still to learn."

        Francisco said nothing to this, and Sir Oliver went on to tell him what he had heard of the battery's defence, of how Angelica had been carried away, and of the efforts for her ransom which he had since made.

        Francisco was still quiet. He lay so still that Sir Oliver wondered at one time whether he heard all with his mind, though his eyes were not closed But when the tale came to an end, he said in a low tone: "It is clear now from the first. What do you want to know?"

        "It is hard to see how the Turks could so closely approach before the alarm was called. Was it by subtle ruse, or do you blame those who failed to keep a good watch?"

        "It was I who failed."

        "Then I must ask you to tell me how."

        "So I will."

        In a low toneless voice, he told of the letter he had received, and so lightly believed, and of the dispositions he made thereon; and how at last he had gone with Venetia into the cell so that the platform was bare of men when the Turks came.

        Sir Oliver listened to a tale which was not different from what he had guessed for truth, though he had not supposed that it would be told in so open a way.

        His first question was not what Francisco expected to hear, being on a point which was of less moment to him than to Malta's defence, which was Sir Oliver's greater care.

        "How did the letter come to your hand?"

        "It was given me outside the citadel wall, as I returned to the battery, having met my cousin within the town, by the hand of a half-grown boy."

        "Did you see him well?"

        " No. It was a bad light. He was one I had no cause to regard, and he was soon gone."

        "There is nothing you can recall?"

        "He had a scarred chin."

        "Should you know him by that again?"

        "Unless there be two with such marks."

        "You may have done some service in this. . . . Was it with your will that your cousin reported this letter to me?"

        "It was her wish. I agreed thereto. . . . She must have had more doubt than she showed to me, or she had not warned Antonio, as you say."

        "It was well for you that she did, for Antonio sat with a girded sword, and some men in the same array, or I suppose the guns would have been destroyed. . . . Did you see how your cousin was seized?"

        "She came to my aid when I was faced by three, of whom one sought to reach me behind, and him she brought to ground in a bold way, so that I endured to deal with the other two. . . . I called to her to stand back, as I thought she did, but after that there is not much I recall."

        "It must have been then she was snatched, for at that time the Turks were turning to flee."

        "I have been so fooled that you will say I am not worthy the trust I had."

        "That is truth. You are relieved of your command from this hour. Beyond that, it must be left till your wound is closed."

        Francisco made no answer to that. He asked: "There is no doubt you will bring her free?"

        "So I suppose we may, having this Yusef in pawn. I have a good hope. I will not go beyond that."

        "You will let me hear?"

        "You shall be quickly told, either of evil or good."

        "It is all I ask. . . . I know well you will not fail her part from a slack will."

        Sir Oliver went at that, having more matter for thought. He had heard much that Francisco need not have told, and that (unless Angelica should return, and in more mood to talk than before) could not have been discovered in other ways. Sir Oliver had little sympathy with him, and it was his hard resolve to uncover the truth which had kept the matter alive when the Grand Master (knowing less than he) might have passed it by. But at that time he had been careful to say no more than would leave it still in his own hands, lest he should stir more than he could after control. But, since Hassan had mentioned his ransom terms, he saw that the Grand Master's eyes were on the event with a new keenness, which would not lightly be turned aside.

        His first duty was to Malta's defence, and he had resolved before seeing Francisco that he should not continue in his command, unless he could give a better account than he expected to hear.

        Having heard the tale, he had been instant in his decision that Francisco could not be left in a trust he had twice abused; but, beyond that, on his own confession, he was worthy of death by the laws of war, as they have been at all times.

        Sir Oliver might have little sympathy for him, but he did not wish to get Angelica back (which was his greater concern) and meet her with the news that he had been active to bring her cousin to shameful death. Nor was he sure where his duty lay. If Francisco's fault had been widely known, discipline would have rendered merciless punishment almost a necessity of routine, which he would himself have approved, and from which no private feeling would have turned him aside. But it was known to none but himself. He did not doubt that Francisco, if his dishonour were not exposed, might still be more use alive than dead for Malta's defence. . . . None is bound to convict himself. . . . Nor should too much heed be given to the words of a wounded and fevered man. . . . It must be left for more thought, and he would speak to Francisco again.

        He was pressed with contending cares when he got back to his own rooms, and it was at a late hour that a Maltese spy, who had got through the Turkish lines, was brought to him to make report.

        The man bore no letter, it being held the safer way to trust wholly to spoken words (the Turks thinking the man to be their own spy). He brought account of some volunteers who had landed by night in St. Paul's Bay, and of some stir at Palermo in preparation to send relief (which might be in time, if St. Angelo could endure for another year), and of a good word from Doria, the Genoese admiral, who was ever La Valette's friend, and was now active on his behalf. But when mention was made of Yusef, he said: "Why, I suppose he is hanged by now. So it was to be when I left Notabile this morn. The Marshal was wroth that the Turks dallied to come to terms, having been told the sum that he would not abate. He will have one man hanged on each day, that the folk may see that the vermin are less by that count; and as there was no other caught for this morn, he said that to hang a man of such rank would put those who are weak-kneed in a better heart. Anyway, it was so talked when I came away.

        "I must hope," Sir Oliver said, "that a letter I sent may have been in time to prevent that."

        "I cannot say," the man replied, "beyond this, that it had not when I left, and Yusef was to be hanged in an hour from then."

        "Well," Sir Oliver said, "we can but wait till we hear more." He turned his mind to give the man certain messages for Marshal Couppier's own ear, which must be repeated with care.

CHAPTER XXV

        HASSAN listened to what the pursuivant had to say, with a wrath that he must not show, either for him to take back such report to the Christian dogs, or for those around to observe.

        He had made an offer to accept ransom for Angelica, in a form to which he knew that the Grand Master would not agree, so that it could not be said that he had not observed the procedure usual on both sides in regard to captives of noble blood; and still more that a wide attention might be drawn to what he had done, as well as what he proposed to do.

        He wished to do more than gratify a private revenge. He wished the world to observe how one by whom he had been foiled at first had been captured by him, even from under St. Angelo's guns, and of the fate to which she had fallen at last, though he might be a señorita of great estate, and of the noblest Andalusian blood.

        It might sound a jest to ask for the surrender of two of the best galleys in the Maltese fleet as a girl's exchange, and one that must surely be rejected in time of war, but, as Sir Oliver had said, it had not been without point. It emphasised the reason why she had been seized, and that it had been something more than a casual chance of war.

        Hassan had supposed that the ransom he asked would be refused (though, in the improbable event of the ships being given up, his pride would have been well served in another way), and that, by his public mention of them, the subsequent stripes which he intended for Angelica's back, and the indignities which were to be hers in the slave-markets of the East, would be recognised as his revenge for her interference to frustrate his plans.

        When the pursuivant began by saying that the ransom asked must be regarded as no more than a pleasant jape (which he did with the adroit choosing of words which was the second teaching of the college from which he came, the first being the knowledge of many tongues), Hassan had listened with the inward smile of one who sees his foes dance to a tune which he had chosen before. He expected to hear next of an offer of gold, which he would refuse, be it little or

much, to the annoyance of the Grand Master and his Council, who would doubtless wrangle over the proffer of larger sums. He would let them bid up and up, till he saw they would bid no more, and when he had played with them to that end, she should have a whipping she would not like (for he could not omit that, it being little indeed to the tortures he would have used upon one who had treated him with such successful contumely, had he not been disposed to a lenience which he seldom felt), and, after that, he would consider what he would do. There was a Nizam of Central India, he had heard, who would pay a fabulous price for a Spanish virgin of the best blood, if she were of a beauty he could admire, as Angelica could not fail to be (the Turks had spread at this time beyond the mountains of middle Asia, and the crescent flew over Delhi walls), but he might put such thoughts aside, for his wealth was great, and keep her for himself, if she would be docile to him, as he did not doubt he could bring her to be; and she would have Dragut's daughter (now that Dragut was dead) and a score of others, if she desired, whom she could use as she would.

        He heard the first part of the pursuivant's speech with an inward smile, which did not disturb the quiet gravity of his face, but when it went on to say that if an offer were made for exchange against the release of Candelissa's son it might be variously received, he found it harder to hear with a passive front, for he saw at once that, though it was a bargain he did not want, it might be hard to decline. It had been to make other provision for this exchange that he had thought to capture Francisco also, and come away with a double bag, for which he had lacked time at the last.

        Candelissa had been Dragut's second in command when Hassan had been no more than a cradled child. He was of a great wealth, and in Tripoli he had a great power. He had a reputation for a cunning which brought his foes to an end which it was often hard to lay at his door. He was not one whom Hassan would lightly offend, and, with a common parental perversity, he valued his son more highly than other men (unless Marshal Couppier) were disposed to do.

        Hitherto the negotiation for Yusef's release had been in Mustapha's hands, and Hassan had not been directly concerned. It was recognised to be a difficult matter to arrange, for the Marshal was not easily moved from what he regarded as the mission he had from God, which was to kill those of the Moslem faith. If he hanged a Turk, he knew that there was rejoicing among the saints, but, if he let him go for a bag of gold, he was less sure that they would approve. If a man had a trapped rat, would he let him loose in his larder again? Even though he could pay ransom with a portion of cheese? A Turk loosed must be killed or captured again, or, till he was, he would continue to work destruction to Christian men.

        Marshal Couppier, being asked the price at which he would let Yusef go, named impossible sums, and did no more than defer his death while he had others to keep the daily hangings supplied.

        Mustapha, using his wits to save the youth, if it could be done without payment of sums at which a king might have been overpriced, had promised consideration rather than made rejection of these demands, hoping the while that the chance of war might bring a captive to his own hands, such as the Grand Master would allow to be an equal exchange.

        Now it seemed that the chance had come. Hassan (with Candelissa three yards away) could not say that Yusef should hang rather than the girl should be given up.

        He sat silent and passive for a time, giving no sign of his thoughts, which was no more than the customed way in which rulers of his race and rank would behave in Council, and still more when they gave audience either to inferior men, or those who represented their foes.

        He asked at last: "Yusef would be returned having all his limbs, and in such health as he was on the day when he was caught?"

        The question was one which the pursuivant knew to be reasonable, and which Candelissa must recognise as being in the interest of his son. There had been tricks on both sides, at sundry places and times, when prisoners who were not exchanged simultaneously or for whom ransom was paid without adequate care, were returned in such mutilated conditions as the humour of their captors devised. It was the more necessary to be clear on such points, because the offer came from St. Angelo, and Yusef was in Notabile, with which communication was not freely maintained.

        "It is so," the pursuivant replied, "that the Grand Master would wish it to be, and he is not one, as I need not say, to do less than his word is pledged."

        "He has such a name," Hassan allowed, after a pause of nearly as much length as before, "and that, I do not doubt, he will still maintain. Don Garcio, as it is agreed that our captive is called, is one whom the Grand Master would not lose, which would be (for reasons I will not express) to his special shame. If this exchange be agreed, he will add gold with a free hand?"

        "It was rather thought that there would be such offer from you, or the exchange would be less than fair."

        "But if Don Garcio be returned with no dishonour of any sort? That is not of an equal weight, as the Grand Master will perceive without explanation from me."

        "I must still say that it is on your side that the scale would tilt."

        "The offer is not refused," Hassan said, after the longest silence of all, "but you shall come again tomorrow at this time, when I must hope that you will have something to add to make a fairer exchange, and, in the meantime, you will allow that we send to Marshal Couppier in the next hour, having a plain writing from you, that we may be assured both that Yusef is well, and that he will be so kept till this is agreed or it have fallen wholly apart."

        The pursuivant made no objection to this, having done most, if not all, at which his instructions aimed, and Hassan felt that he had made the best fight that the position allowed against an offer at which he could not curse aloud, as it would have been a pleasure to do. He cared as much for Candelissa's son as for an old mule, or perhaps less; and he saw the vengeance and vindication which he had designed taken out of his hands for no profit at all, beyond what he could get the old corsair to pay. But, by gaining the day's respite, he had done all that he could to keep the jaws of the trap apart. He had time for thought, and who knows to what thought may lead?

        He sent to Notabile, being about six miles away, with a flag of truce, to enquire concerning Yusef's health, as he could not delay to do, and then approached Candelissa, to get what he could out of a lost game, if there were no way by which it could still be won.

        Candelissa, a grey old wolf who barked little but would bite in a savage way, turned crafty suspicious eyes upon one whom he regarded as little more than a handsome fortunate youth, who, by Dragut's favour, daughter, and death, had come so soon to a Viceroy's power, to which he himself had the better right, and at one time may have had a good hope to get. They were united by nothing but the belief that it was Allah's will that they should raid the commerce of Christian men, and enslave or slay all who came to their hands, and even in this Hassan had less than the certitude, single and simple, which was dominant in the more primitive mind.

        Candelissa knew of a good reason why Hassan should not have agreed the exchange without first talking to him, and that being in the front of his mind, he supposed it to have controlled the event. In fact, it was only after the pursuivant had gone that Hassan considered it at all, though it was one that he would not ultimately have overlooked. The point was that Angelica was Hassan's private property by the usage of war. If she should be given in exchange to purchase Yusef's release, by whom would Hassan be paid for her, and how would the price be fixed?

        That, it might be supposed, would be for them to agree now, and for Candelissa to pay, which agreement might not have been easy to reach, but the position was less simple than that.

        Candelissa had been resolved that his own son should be released at whatever price, but he had not been equally willing that the gold should be poured from his own stores. He said that the youth had been taken in Turkey's war, and that it was for Mustapha to get him free. This was going further than a jurist of that time would have sustained, but he brought forward some crafty arguments in its support. He made much of the fact that Yusef had been taken on Piali's front, as the commands were set at that time, and as a result of orders he had from him, which (Candelissa said) should not have been given at all, Yusef not being under Piali's control. He hinted that, if the ransom must be provided by him, he might have to go home (with his men) to provide the gold, in which case it would be supposed that Mustapha would not see him again.

        To have deserted the siege on such a pretext would have been a defiance of the Turkish power, and of its Viceroy, Hassan, to whom he was more immediately responsible; but Candelissa had looked to Hassan to give him support, as in a matter on which those of the Barbary coast should stand together against Byzantium's domination and greed.

        Hassan had taken a middle course, talking to Mustapha and Candelissa in different tones, as the situation required. He gave Candelissa a hope that he would have his support if he would be guided by him, and Mustapha a fainter fear (which was more than enough) that if Candelissa withdrew he would do the same, which would have been the end of the siege.

        Mustapha, knowing that Soliman would not lightly forgive if the siege should be abandoned from such a cause, and also that, if a huge ransom were paid under such dispute, it would be likely to be the loss of him from whose purse it should come, temporised, prolonging the argument as to what the amount of the ransom should be, and both he and Hassan may have offered Allah most fervent prayers that Marshal Couppier would cut the knot by twisting one of another kind round Yusef's neck.

        Now Hassan saw that, if the youth's life were to be purchased by Angelica's return, there would be need of a clear bargain before as to who should pay her value to him, and even that might leave him no more in the end than an empty purse, and a quarrel upon his hands.

        "Candelissa," he said, "you have heard that I did not refuse to give up one for your son's life whom I had purposed to keep, and who is of special value to me. I did that because I would not give you so great a grief to my own gain. But, if I do this, you will not think me less than a friend if I ask a pledge from you that her fair value shall be paid without delay or demur on the day that Yusef is free."

        "That," Candelissa replied, "is fair to ask, but it is for Mustapha to grant."

        "But if Mustapha will not accord?"

        "You have said yourself that it is his part to get Yusef free."

        "I do not deny that. But it is for you to bargain with him, not for me. You should buy Don Garcio (who, as you may have heard, is no man) from me, and then ask Mustapha to find her price. Or, if you will say that Mustapha should buy from me, which I do not deny, it is for you to arrange with him."

        But Candelissa would not agree to this. He argued in many ways. He talked of obsolescent accounts between the last Viceroy (Dragut) and himself, which a common discretion had resigned to a buried past. He suggested Hassan's power to withhold payments which he should make, in his vice-regal capacity, to the Turkish crown. He talked of many various things, including that they should make common cause to sail away from a siege which was slow to end, and where the plunder at last might not be more than would pay the charges they had to bear. But Hassan saw that these various themes had one feature which did not change. They all meant trouble for him. Loss of prestige, or gold, or quarrels old and new to be on his hands; and the lesson, if not the text, of all was that he had better give Angelica up with no payment at all, beyond such goodwill as it would purchase from Candelissa, which he thought he might value at a small coin, and yet over its worth.

        In the end he agreed to see Mustapha himself, thinking that they might devise some compromise which they could unite to enforce, but seeing it to be no more than a poor hope.

        Candelissa was the one man who was left with a mind content. He expected to see his son back on the next day, and he thought that he would be a clever man who would afterwards get him to open the secret hoards where his gold was hid.

        This conversation took place soon after the noon hour. Hassan knew that it would not be a time to disturb Mustapha, unless for a more urgent cause, for he rested from that time till the sun was further down in the sky. It was a custom born of Egyptian heat, and the habits of age are not lightly changed.

        Being alone, he returned his mind to that about which he cared more than the collection of Angelica's price. How could he avoid letting her go? That which he valued before took a higher worth as it became harder to keep.

        As he pondered, a subtle thought came. Suppose he could persuade her to remain by her own will? That would be to triumph in a new and even more spectacular way. It seemed fantastic at first, but, as he considered it on all sides, it dressed itself in a garb of reason that gave him a good hope. Rather than lose all, he would bid high, and win a different success from that he had first designed.

CHAPTER XXVI

        HASSAN had seen nothing of Angelica since he had told her the ransom he required, and what her fate would be if it were not found. He had no more to say to her till the time should come for her to pay for what she had done. And it may be doubted whether he had given Venetia a further thought, her efforts to reach his regard during the days when she had been confined to his inner tent having borne little fruit to this time.

        He had ordered that the two should have freedom within the limits of the house, and had appointed servants to wait on them in more comfort than a Turkish captive would often have. He had surrounded the house with such guard as made escape seem a vain thought. There they could wait, and spend their time in guessing what was to come.

        For two to be kept together thus among those of another race, and who were hostile to them, could not fail to establish an intimacy which would be of such kind and degree as their natures allowed.

        In a space of two days, Venetia found that she had told her companion more of the adventures of her past life than any living may have heard from her lips before. She had talked thus, having nothing other to do, and by an impulse she did not trouble herself to understand, which sought to justify what she had done by explaining what she had been, and now was. Angelica gave her no confidence in return, but a measure of liking at which she wondered herself, Venetia being, by her standards, despicable in almost all she exposed in her shameless way.

        "To understand is to forgive. . . ." It is a proverb of Spain, and of other lands. It is most often less than true, for to understand may be to see that occasion for forgiveness does not arise. Angelica's judgement did not excuse. She saw that Venetia had acted in a base way, bringing others to grief or death for her own gain, and not being greatly ashamed.

        She admitted that there might be many who would do the same if it were the only way to escape being flayed from the feet up, though she supposed that most would be afterwards moved both to grief and shame, whereas Venetia would have it that she had behaved as well as she could be reasonably expected to do.

        She wondered how she would behave herself under a like threat, and prayed thereon to her own saint, both that she might not be subject to such a test, and that she should not fail if it should come.

        Venetia succeeded by her self-revelations so far that Angelica obtained an appreciation of what she was and of what she could never be. Do we blame a tree that it does not dance, or a kitten that it is seldom still? Do we complain that a butterfly lacks size, or that an elephant has no grace? We accept all as they are, and may agree with God when He called them good.

        Venetia had a body, slim and soft, that seemed formed for the rites of love, which it was not slow to observe. She had a flower-fair face, and a crown of pale-gold hair, for which many women of better name would have given what soul they had and thought it a low price, as it might have been. She had courage, and a quick wit, and she claimed to be that which she was, and no more. Angelica, to whom she made herself bare both of body and any soul that she had, saw the wisdom of accepting her in the same way. And so they came to accord.

        It was while Hassan was arguing with Candelissa, and getting little satisfaction therefrom, that they sat together on the belvedere of the house, being so placed that they could not be overheard in a guarded speech, nor overseen unaware.

        "I suppose," Venetia said, "you would get from here, if you could, and if it could be done at less than a great risk."

        Angelica was cautious in her reply: "It is not hard to suppose that."

        "You will trust," Venetia said shrewdly, but with no sign of taking offence, "where you must, but no inch beyond. . . . I have taught you that (which you were needing to learn), if no more. . . . I will be franker than you, that I would get from here if I could, but I lack gold in a large sum."

        "I told you before that I have that, and you said that your skin was worth more to you, as it was likely to be."

        "I meant that I would not set you free and remain here, for all the gold that is under the sky. But I have gained a dread of this place, and a fear that it is here I shall end, unless I am soon away. If I knew one to which I could safely flee - "

        "How would gold be a help to that?"

        "It would solve all, as it ever will."

        "Can you show me a plan?"

        "There is only one. It is always to bribe. Of the guard and servants around, there is always one. . . . It is to find him, and not to approach those of the harder kind. It is a Greek we need, and it is seldom they cannot be found. A Greek, or a Jew. But to find a Jew here - Well, it could not be done."

        "I would give much to be gone with speed. It is for that I would pay."

        "That might be hard to contrive. But there is a question beyond. Where should we go? Or, at least, where should I? Could you give me a pledge that I should not be chastened again if I should arrive within St. Angelo's walls? That you could not! We cannot tell what may be known or guessed of my part when you were seized, even though you should never say.

        "But if we could so escape that we should be put ashore on the Italian coast, or even Sicily might do well enough - You would soon find means to be where you would, either in St. Angelo or another place, and, if I had some gold for my instant needs, I should not long be easy to find."

        "It is to St. Angelo I would go by the shortest way."

        "Then it could not be with me. Is my offer vain?"

        "I have not said that. It may be better to take a long road than to stay here."

        Venetia would doubtless have said more to develop her plan, but at that moment there were sounds on the stony path of the approach of a number of mounted men.

        "This," she said, "will be with meaning for you. We must hope that you will not be taken apart."

        Angelica, seeing that Hassan centred the group, did not doubt that she would soon know more of what her fate was likely to be. She might have surprised herself to observe that Venetia's wish, that they should not be parted now, had a response in her own heart, as though, being so compassed with foes, the woman from whose treachery all her troubles came was a friend that she must not lose.

        The riders passed from view, coming closely beneath where they sat. They could be heard to dismount. Shortly, a servant came with the summons they had expected to hear. But it was Venetia who was required.

        Angelica, left alone, had leisure to thank herself that she had been guarded in what she said. She did not think that Venetia would betray it, but, if she did, what would it be? Only that, if Venetia fled, she would agree to go too. Hassan would not suppose that she stayed of her own will. It would tell him nothing he would not guess.

        But her better purpose was to escape alone, for which she watched at all times like a trapped rat, and on which her mind dwelt, declining to think that it could not be done, though as yet she had seen no way.

        She had no desire for the Sicilian shore, from which to return to St. Angelo might be little easier than to escape from this place - especially, she being the woman she was. It was at Francisco's side that she longed to be, taking his part, so that she forgot her present danger at times in the insistence of that desire. . . . But she had seen from Venetia's words that her single escape would be unwelcome as throwing suspicion on the one who remained. Nor could Venetia return with her to St. Angelo, if the chance should appear. She was glad that she had said little of her own thoughts. . . .

        Venetia came to Hassan, who was seated in the salon where he had seen Angelica before. He asked: "You would go from here, if you could?"

        She was cautious in her reply. "It would be a question of where. I like not a guarded door. I did not fret in your tent."

        "There is a felucca sails by night, in four days from now. It would put you ashore on the Calabrian coast. If you were there, with a purse of gold, would you say you had been paid in a fair way?"

        It was as though he had read her thoughts. She was about to assent, when he added: "There is one thing more you must do first, which may not be hard."

        Her heart sank somewhat at that. Would there always be the one thing more, and the promise moving ahead?

        He went on, not requiring reply. "The señorita's ransom has been refused. She is mine for such vengeance as she has earned. I may give her for a plaything for men among whom she will live for a few hours, but not more. I may impale her, or have her skinned. If I do less, she may be whipped, and sold at the market's chance. I may brand her, and make her the jeered slave of my own house.

        "Having these powers, I may act in another way, making her my first queen over all my house, with next to a royal rank, and with the riches that women crave. If I should so resolve, I should require one pledge in return, that she would be loyal to me, neither fractious nor sullen of mood, but docile to meet my will. Do you think she would deny that?"

        "She would be mere fool if she did."

        "How do you stand, after two nights in one bed? Will she take wisdom from you? Have you come to accord?"

        "Not so ill. But I am not trusted at all."

        "That would be much to require. . . . If she come to this, there will be the felucca for you, and the purse will not be lean."

        "If it be more than my power, which I do not think. . . . If I do all that I may. . . . You will let me go?"

        "You shall go if you do. It has not a hard sound. You should be content."

        She saw that it was all she would get. She said: "It should not be hard. You will see her first? Or do you leave it wholly to me?"

        "I will see her now. So you can say; but you need not add what I have said. You can hear it from her."

        Venetia went back, saying no more than: "I am to be let loose, but not yet. He would talk to you."

        "Did you learn anything but that?"

        "Your ransom is not agreed. He said not how they came apart. He seems in a good mood."

        Angelica took little comfort from that, thinking that his good mood might be because she was his to bait; but she went down with what courage she could contrive.

CHAPTER XXVII

        HASSAN looked at Angelica, as it seemed to her as she entered, with approving eyes. She took what satisfaction she could from that, and from the fact that, though he did not rise at her approach, he did not require her to stand. "You can sit," he said, "if you will."

        She had the wit to see that, if he had meant no more than to put her to shame and sale, it would have been done in an open way. When he saw her alone, the idea of some bargain that he would make came to her mind. Perhaps the way in which they had first met may have given her more confidence than she would have felt had she known him in no guise than that of the savage ruler of the Barbary coast. And when they had met for the second time, she had proved the better in that bout - for which it seemed she had now to pay.

        "When I talk," she said, in a cooler way than it was easy to feel, "I am not accustomed to stand."

        "You might be glad to do that," he countered coldly, "if you were put in another way. . . . It seems that your ransom will not be paid."

        "You mean the ships? Did you ever think that it would? It was jest to ask."

        "It was none of me. You may call it yours if you will."

        She asked boldly: "Then what will you do now? Will you take a price?"

        "I will take none. You are mine by the custom of war; which is better than gold."

        "Gold will build ships, or will buy."

        "But not those two, which I have meant to have. As I will when St. Angelo falls."

        "Which it will not do."

        "We will change no words about that. If you are wise for the next day, you may live to see. . . . I have said I will have you or the ships, and it seems that you can be better spared."

        "What am I worth beyond gold? I can give you that."

        "You are worth revenge, and to show that none can flout me and walk secure.

        "You have exposed that, for the world to see. You can be content. You can be generous beyond that, knowing that I did no more than I ought on my part. It is the weak who must watch their repute, but you stand too high."

        It was shrewdly said, and held a wisdom that he allowed, though it was not of his code. Also, it stroked his pride. But his will was not to be deflected by any words that her wit might find for her need.

        "It is so," he said, "that I am able to give you choice. On the one hand, I will not say what I will do, for I have yet to decide; or I may even leave it to you. There is sport if I give you dice for yourself to throw, and as they fall you may be flayed, or impaled, or fastened for ants to eat, or merely whipped, or bastinado'd across the feet. It is for your own wrist to decree. But, in my present mood, the choice will be, on the one side, that you be whipped in St. Catherine's Square, and then sent to a Damascus merchant, who will get me the best price that such as you can command.

        "Now against that I will give you a chance that you may pay your debt in a better way, and its condition is only one, of which you cannot complain. I will give you that for which a million women would lick dirt with a ready tongue. I will make you my own wife, wedding you with honour at the eleventh hour of tomorrow morn, and you shall be first of the four which our laws allow (of which I have but three now), and so far as those laws permit, for I am one by whom the injunctions of the Koran are not lightly ignored, they will be servants around your feet."

        "When," Angelica asked, desperately fencing for further time, "will you require my reply?"

        "It is not a choice that should be hard to decide. . . . But there is a condition that is almost needless to say. If I do this, giving reward to one to whom stripes are due, I must be assured that you will not fail on your part in the duties a wife should yield, but will be docile to please my will."

        "It is not thus that ladies are woo'd in my own land."

        "Which you have left, and are unlikely to see again. You must be content with the customs to which you come."

        "You may see it another way; but it is a hard choice for one who has no purpose to wed."

        "Which all women have, who are not sick. You must find different words, or you will have a sore back, if no worse. Would you stand stripped in the sun where the crowd will laugh? Have you seen the whip curl round a woman's thigh? You may dream of that, and give me answer when you awake, which I shall require at the seventh hour, for by noon you will find that you have been either wedded or whipped."

        Angelica looked at him in some doubt whether it would be of any avail if she should break into a passion of tearful appeal, which it would not have been hard to do; but she thought it would have no more result than to reduce both his patience and his regard, and, thinking that, her pride was sufficient to hold her in.

        "You will be clear," he said, "that it is a loyal wife you would have to be, putting regrets by, and making my country yours."

        "You would not require that I change my faith?"

        "It is a matter which could be left for this time. You would have instructions to heed. Your faith of a man-born god is for children, not men. You will put it by, when you have been pointed a better way. . . . Yet you should have freedom in that till your own time. . . . There is no more to be said now."

        Hassan rose with that word, and walked out without looking at her again. She went back to where Venetia was, being aware, as she climbed the stairs, that her heart beat in a choking way, and that fear had come close to her side, as she had not felt it before. She heard the clatter of hooves on stones, and knew that Hassan had ridden away. She had till seven of the next dawn.

CHAPTER XXVIII

        "You are hard," Venetia said, "either to coax or to drive. There was a convent to which you might go, and which you would have ruled at a far day, but it must be another manner of life. It must be marriage for you.

        "Now you can be wed to a great prince. You can be the first woman on the Barbary coast, from Alexandria to the narrow Straits, and you say you would liever be whipped. Can I think that? Suppose he change his mind, and yet give you no worse than a rope's choice? Have you seen men hanged? But I have, and some women too. When they are cut down they are not pleasant to see.

        "But you know naught. You are not fit to walk in the world's ways. You should be in the cells. I say your uncle was right in that.

        "But you are here now. You cannot grow melons and gather figs. You must do what a woman does. Being caught here as you are, you should be glad that you will not go to the rack, or else be raped in a rude way."

        "I have thought," Angelica said, "that it is not what may be done to us, but that which we do ourselves, by which we are shamed."

        "Well, if you can get comfort from that!"

        "I get no comfort at all. I have choice of ills."

        "I would give you comfort with a good heart. But who could? You are so stubborn of will. If you dislike to be wife to a Barbary prince, it need not be long. Can you not smile a lie? You could find occasion to get away when he thought you lulled."

        "We have a proverb in our land that a lie has short legs. It is a part that I should not sustain, had I mind to try."

        "That I doubt. Were you of resolute will, you are one who would lie well. . . . I have heard another proverb of Spain, that truth is for children to speak, or else fools."

        "I suppose the meaning to be that, of all mankind, they are nearest God."

        "Do you so?" Venetia yawned. "It could be taken another way. . . . But I have heard from a priest's mouth that you are not bound when you swear, being wrongly compelled thereto. It is an oath of duress. I have had much comfort from that, swearing when I am trapped as it may seem wisest to do, and by any oath I am asked, though it be by Bethlehem's star, or the manger that cradled Christ."

        "You are versed in much," Angelica allowed, "which I have not pondered till now, but if I wed him at all" - "as you see you must," Venetia interposed - "if I wed him at all, I would practise to keep my vows."

        "Well, you could do worse. And it is what I should wish, at the least till I am set free."

        Venetia's voice, as she said this, had an accent of sleep, into which she soon after fell, having ease of body and mind, and thinking that she was near the end of as dark a path as she had yet trod.

        Angelica lay awake, having more cause. She did not wish to be whipped or slaved, nor did she wish to take the way out that Hassan's offer proposed, concerning which she had some wonder as to why it was made, not being vain enough to suppose that he was drawn thereto by her beauty's power, as some women would have been quicker to do.

        Thinking of that, she recalled his courtesies to herself when they had first met.

        "The potent arms that you now bear." It had pleased her then. She had thought it sincere. But she knew now that he had been acting a part, which she saw that he had done well.

        She remembered then that his face had engaged her thoughts in the night hours. She would have regarded the idea that she should wed him rather differently then from how she did now. But now she knew who he was. The heathen foe of her race and faith. A man with three wives for whom he had so little of love that he offered to put them under her feet. . . . And at that time she had been seeking escape from the dark shadow of convent walls. Something must be allowed for that. . . . And then she had been so young! It was . . . it was less than four months ago. It seemed impossible to believe. The quiet, sheltered life, with its many rules, its restraints, its prohibitions of petty things, had the remoteness of prehistoric times. How she had lived in the days between! - And then she must think of that to which it had brought her now.

        She had a choice to make, or, as Venetia would have said, with her clear shallow sense, she had really none. Rather, she had a fate to face, to endure, to come through with what honour she could.

        But she could not bring herself to regard it thus. She had one dominant thought - to get back to St. Angelo, where she ought to be. Beside that, all other decisions had an aspect of irrelevance. It mattered little whether she were wedded or whipped, if in either case she were foiled of the thing she would.

        Indeed, if she were wed, she would be in the worse case, for (she supposed) she would be pledged in honour, if not in words, not to return. Her mind went back to seek way of escape, as it ever would. . . . Francis had a wound in the arm. It was not one (she supposed) by which he would be likely to die. She had greater fear that it would be mended before she could be there, for she judged, truly enough, that as he grew better in health, he would be nearer the day when he must give account of what he had done; and when he did that she did not wish to be far off.

        She did not think she could do much of herself, but she felt that Sir Oliver was her friend, and she knew that, even over the Grand Master, he had a great power. . . . He was friend to her, but that he was that to Francisco she was less sure. . . . Francis would be blamed the more that she was not there. And he had called on her to stand back, as she should have done. She had given him the help he required. She might have done more, or withdrawn. But she had done neither of those. She had stood like a fool - like a blind fool - till there had been sudden hands on her arms, and they had dragged her away. Should they blame Francis for that . . .? She might fail to get free, but if she did not attempt, she would be shamed in her own thoughts, which should be worse than to be abused by the violence of infidel men.

        She knew that Venetia would not aid her to single escape, nor be willing to risk that she herself should fall either into the Grand Master's or Marshal Couppier's hands. She would be more likely to raise the alarm. But Venetia was sleeping now.

        Angelica looked at her as she lay, cheek on hand, in the dim light of the lamp. In her sleep, she had the very innocent look of one whom conscience did not trouble at all. She lived by her own law, and was not ashamed. Her face looked fragile in sleep, though a shoulder, which the blanket did not conceal, was firm with sufficient flesh under its white smoothness of satin skin.

        If there were any marks on her face of what her life had been to that day, the night was kind that they could not be seen in that shadowy room. She looked so fair as she lay that it seemed strange that God should so create that which would be destroyed by the malice of time; which may be true alike of the fading of every flower.

        "I shall have tried, if I do but walk out, and be driven back," Angelica thought, silently drawing her doublet over her head. And then it came to her mind that Venetia might not escape blame for her flight, and she had a sense of fantastic guilt that she should desert her thus, forgetting how it had come to that pass, and then she thought: "But as yet I am not free!" and there was a sudden laughter to check, which would have come at the wrong time.

        Her dressing was soon done, and he spared a moment to wish she had weapon to take, of which there was none in the room, except a dagger Damascus-made, that Venetia had secreted, she would not say by what wile, and which was under her pillow now. Angelica saw its hilt, and thought she could have drawn it out, leaving the sheath still under the pale-gold head, and there came a memory of how Venetia had robbed her room while she slept, at another time. "But," she thought, "I will not go by her code; and it is not weapons but stealth that should get me through."

        So she let the dagger be, and went out very silently, closing the door, and down stairs which were half in moonlight and half in shade, and so to the back part of the house, where there was a small window that she thought she might have got through.

        She believed that the house was empty at night, the servants not sleeping within, but barring it on the outside, and watching with such patrols through the dark hours that to get out unseen was a feeble chance, though it was one she was bent to try.

        But as she entered the kitchen, a man rose, who had been drowsing beside the board. "What is that?" he asked in a sharp voice, and Angelica thought that her effort was soon done.

        A shaft of moonlight came from the higher part of a window that was shuttered below. It crossed herself and glittered on a bare sword that had lain by the man's hand, and was now held.

        "Telek," she said, "you keep a good watch."

        "So I must," he replied, "if I would keep my head where it is. What do you do here?"

        "Why, I have no rest. I must walk abroad, as I often do in the night."

        "You cannot go beyond here."

        "But I will talk to you, if I may."

        The man made no objection to that. He was the one she knew best, she being able to understand his speech alone among those who were round the house. But of what race he was she could make no more than a poor guess, and he may have been in nearly as much doubt.

        He rose to trim a lamp that had gone out as he dozed, and gave her a better look than he could before. He saw she was fully dressed in a way she would not have been had she meant no more than a walk within doors, having a feathered cap on the black curls which she had shortened to a boy's length, as they were worn in the Spain of that day.

        "Why," he asked, in a chuckling voice, "did you think to walk free?"

        He was a big man, awkwardly made, having black eyes, under straw-coloured hair, and a large mouth which was used to laugh but could set into cruel lines. Angelica looked at him, wondering whether Venetia would class him among those with whom gold would prevail or as one of the harder kind. Well, it had to be tried.

        "I would not turn," she said, "from an open door."

        "No," he said, chuckling again, as though at a joke he did not expect her to share. "I do not blame you for that. . . . You will have heard that Yusef was hanged."

        "Yusef?" she asked. "Who is he?"

        The man showed his surprise. He knew that the Viceroy had visited her after the exchange had been proposed, and before the envoy had come back with the news that it could not be, he having been shown where Yusef yet hung on the gallows that Marshal Couppier had set up in Notabile square. For what purpose should he have come, except to inform her of the proposed exchange on the next day? And would she seek to escape, supposing that her release was so near? He sensed something here that he did not understand, and he knew that heads are sometimes lost by a loose tongue.

        "I meant naught," he said, and would say no more.

        Angelica had seated herself on the other side of the board. She pushed a ducat across. "There is none to hear," she said, "and it will be silent with me."

        "Why," he said, "it is no more than that the Grand Master had proposed that Captain Yusef, whom the Marshal had caught, should be handed over for you. So it was said, and the exchange was to be arranged for tomorrow noon; but the Marshal had been somewhat too quick, and Yusef was hanged this morn, before word could be got to him. That is common talk, and I suppose it is true. But, if you did not know he was hanged, I see not why you should be anxious to quit."

        "I had been told that no ransom could be agreed."

        "That is how it may prove to be, but there was a different talk on this day, until it was heard at dusk that Captain Yusef was hanged."

        "You heard naught beyond that?"

        "I heard talk that our General, who is Yusef's father, was wroth, and said there must be as thick a rope for your neck, and the Viceroy said you would be shortly for sale and he could buy you and hang you then."

        "So it seems it is time for me to go."

        "So it is, if you know how."

        "It is that I would ask you." She leant forward, and said in a low voice, as though mentioning that which could not be spoken aloud: "For a thousand ducats of gold."

        The man was silent. It was an immense sum to be handled by such as he. Greed and fear strove in his eyes. But he shook his head. It could not be done.

        "It is gold I could not collect, nor you pay, being both dead."

        "I have better hope."

        He quoted an old proverb of many lands. "Live in hope and die in a ditch."

        "This is not to hope but to act. . . . There is no haste. You can give it thought."

        There was silence for some time after that, except for the sound of a large clock on the wall, of which the single hand was moving upward toward the hour. . . . As it reached the summit, the clock struck - twice.

        The man started, and looked at the clock, as though to challenge what it had said. He got up, and pulled a string, by which it would repeat what it had struck at the last hour. The two strokes sounded again.

        "I had not thought it had been so late," he said, "I thought it would but have struck once."

        "It is so," she said, "when you sleep, as you must have done."

        "So I may," he said, "but I wake now. I will not be talked to my death."

        "Do you know," she asked, "why I am here?"

        "It is some tale of two ships, but I have not heard it all in the right way."

        "Then I will tell you now, and you will know that I am one to get free. I have a fortunate star."

        She told the tale of how she swam in the night from the Flying Hawk, and he stared at her again. His eyes had a bold searching look, as he said: "I was told you were woman under your hose."

        "So I am," she said. "I am one of the noblest ladies of Spain, which is why I shall pay you well."

        "If it could be done at all," he said in a doubtful way, "it would be when the guard change, but I think you tempt me to death."

        He had a new doubt. "How should I be sure of the gold, if I got you free?"

        "I will give you a writing now."

        "To be my death, if it were found, and I here? No, I would rather trust you than that. . . . It was a thousand ducats you said? Solid ducats of gold of a true mint?"

        "So I said. But I will not hold you to that. I will make it twelve. With a home, if you will, in my own land."

        He was silent again, wrestling with the temptation, as was plain in his changing face, and she felt that she must bring him to a more resolute mood, lest the night should go.

        "When do the guard change?"

        "It is at the third hour."

        "Then there is a short time to prepare. Will you tell me the plan you have?"

        "It is no more than that I shall go out a moment before the hour, holding a light so that you may slip after and not be seen. You will draw into the shade of the shrubs that are by the door, and I will talk for a moment to the man who is near relief. As he is changed, the one who comes to his place will suppose that I am one of the guard who is then relieved. He will not expect me to return to the house, but to walk off. I will hold him in talk for long enough for you to slip by, and will then move away. You must not be too far gone to join me again, and after that we will go to the hills, if we can get through."

        "It has the sound of a good plan. Had you thought that to raise alarm on the far side of the house might be a good way?"

        The man pondered that. "It might be good at the first, but what start would you get? You would be caught in the larger trap. As I hope, we may get clear before it is known that you are escaped."

        "You said that we should go to the hills. It is St. Angelo where I would be."

        "Then you must get other guide. I am not mad to that point. We must seek the hills. It is on that side we must get free."

        "Then it shall be so, if it must."

        He explained, as was easy to see, that the Turkish armies lay so that they had a narrow front of attack and a wider rear. It was toward the rear, which they did not besiege, that there would be the better chance of escape. It would, indeed, have been easy, but for the fear of Marshal Couppier's raids, which kept the outskirts of the Turkish positions in constant, restless alarm.

        From this point he made no further demur, and exhibited some intelligence, and a cautious thoroughness in his plans, which gave ground for hope that he would earn his reward if the fates were kind.

        He was minute in description of how the bushes lay outside the door, so that Angelica should be able to reach their shelter, on stepping out, without an instant's pause. He calculated how the moonlight would fall. As the hour approached, he extinguished the light, so that her eyes should become used to the dark. He lit a lantern, which he covered behind a bin, till he should require it on going out.

        At about three minutes before the hour, he rose up, and unbarred the door. He stepped out, with the lantern aswing on one hand, and the door-key in the other. He laid the lantern on the ground slightly away, and nearer the hinged side of the door. As he turned to lock it, Angelica slipped out. She made no sound, and could not have been seen even a few yards away.

        He was hailed almost at once, for there were a dozen watchers around the house, and he shouted back in a great voice, as he moved outward to meet the man who approached him, leaving the lantern where he had laid it down.

        "Is all quiet within?" the man asked.

        "Within what?" Telek replied. "It is not quiet within me. I have eaten bad fish, as I think. If I could vomit, I might be at better ease. It is for that I am out. But I will not lose sight of the door, though I may be Etna within."

        "You will do well, if you can," the man replied. "I have seen one dead in two hours from no better cause. . . . Is the door fast?"

        "Yes, and I have left the lantern beside."

        The man was one who would leave nothing to chance. He walked up to the door, which it was beyond his duty to do, feeling that it was firmly secure. There was no default in Telek being outside. It was his special duty to guard that door, which he might do from within or without. He had chosen the comfort of a roof and a kitchen chair. The man who guarded the door at the front lay across the outside, knowing that he would be likely to doze during the hours of his watch. He would lean a halberd against it, which must fall with a great clatter if the door should be opened from within, which would not have been easy to do in a quiet way, while its great key yet hung at his belt.

        The man, having seen that the door was fast, moved back to his post, shouting to those who were left and right that all was well, which they were anxious to know. Telek walked at his side, or somewhat behind, threatening to vomit at times, which it seemed that he could not do.

        "It is worse," the man said, "as I have heard, if you cannot bring it to rise. You should find a leech at the first moment you can."

        "I will leave no port where I am put," Telek replied, "while I have legs which will bear me up. But there is a relief due" (they could hear, as he spoke, the steps of approaching men), "and if you will ask the captain -" He stopped in mid-speech, remembering that, if another should be sent to relieve his post, there would be risk that the flight would be discovered earlier than it otherwise might. He changed to: "But no, I will hold on till the dawn. I am somewhat better I think, now that I am in the open air of the night. I will not risk losing this post, and being in the trenches again."

        "Well, that is your choice. But to vomit when you have pains is the safer way." Another man came out of the night, and there was changing of passwords in a perfunctory style. The man who was about to leave appealed to the newcomer: "Here is Telek, who has eaten fish which was bad. I tell him he must vomit or die. Is it not so?"

        He went off, having asked that, without waiting for a reply. He had to fall into rank at the front of the house, where those whose duty was done would be marched off.

        Telek said: "Well, I may last till I get back." He stood a moment, explaining pain, and then went the same way.

        The new guard went to inspect the door, seeing a light. He found that a lantern was on the ground. The door was locked. He thought: "It is to mark where the door is, for us who watch from the outside." It seemed a good way to him. He hung the lantern on the latch of the door.

CHAPTER XXIX

        "WE must endure," the Grand Master said, "till the autumn days, when they may become weary and go."

        "Well," Sir Oliver answered to that, "we may do no less; and, if we can, I suppose it may be enough, for the Turks do not lay siege as do those to whom a month is no loss."

        Valette agreed about that. It was plain to all. It gave distant hope, if some increase of present fear. There were signs, even now, in the Turkish lines, that they were preparing another storm. They would not rest in a passive grip of those who must get nearer with every day to when they would starve within. They came storming around the walls as having men to lose, but no time. Doing that, they gave future hope, to balance the present stress.

        But the future hope must be faint, for its cause was clear. Mustapha looked north and west for a tempest that did not come; but with a doubt of how long the skies would continue blue.

        The menace of Europe was ever before his mind, urging him on. He had had two months incredibly lengthening into three, and Europe had watched, and talked of much which it did not do. But it was a position that might not endure. It was emphatic reason why the armies of Turkey should not camp idly about, as vultures watch round a starving cow.

        Europe had heard of St. Elmo's fall, and had muttered, but had not moved. If the next news should be that the horsehair standards had overwhelmed the Sanglea it might mutter curses again, but would it not conclude that the end was near, and that it would be too late for any succour to reach? So Mustapha might hope, and that the Sanglea should fall he was clearly resolved, though it was not there alone that the tide rose and the tempest beat but at every yard of the leaguered walls. And the Turkish batteries thundered with little rest either by night or day.

        "They are in fear," the Grand Master said, "that we may be relieved in a large way, if they dally more. From that cause, there is more fury in their assaults, and we are more pressed at the present hour, though we do our part, and may boast that they bleed well. But will they therefore go when the summer is past, and there is no succour arrived? It is hard to say, but we must still endure as the days pass, not counting toward the end."

        He spoke of the powder, of which there was still a good store, but which grew less with each day. Against the tempest of Turkish shot he had ordered before now that there should be no random reply. Each gun must be silent, or trained with care on a mark which would be profit to hit. Now he spoke of rationing every gun, except at issues of active storm.

        Sir Oliver said that he would have a plan for that worked out for the next day. The Grand Master said it would be well to do that: he would go to rest now, if there were no other matter of present care.

        "I do not know that there is," Sir Oliver replied, "or not one that I see how we can help. You will have heard that the Marshal was over-quick to hang Candelissa's son?"

        "I cannot blame him for that. I have said that prisoners shall not be fed. He need not have kept him at all; but I suppose it to be cheering to some to see that there is one less on each day. . . . Yet I am grieved that the exchange was not made. Do you know how they have served her to now?"

        "She is lodged at the villa near St. Catherine that Le Tonneau built, and she had not been abused up to the last news, which was but a few hours ago. She is companioned by La Cerda's mistress that was, whom Hassan also has in his care."

        La Valette frowned at this, in a puzzled way. "Why," he said, "they were together, as I recall, in her chamber before, and it was the same battery in which the wanton was hid that was so sharply attacked, and from which Angelica was secured. . . . Oliver, there is more in this than we have yet probed. It shall not be left till we have turned over the last stone. . . . Is Don Francisco fit to be inquisitioned thereon?"

        "I have seen him in the spital where he is laid. He was very frank in his own blame, and, as he was fevered and ill, I put it by in my mind to a better time. . . . But I have given Colonna charge of his battery while he is laid aside, and that appointment I would ask you to confirm in a more permanent way."

        "Removing Don Francisco therefrom?"

        "So I thought. We should have one there in command of whom we are more sure."

        "So it shall be. . . . Have you no further thought that can get her free?"

        "I know not what to advise. Beyond that we must bargain anew, offering gold with a free hand."

        "We have offered more than her worth."

        "Yes. But they may take it at last. . . . There is some hope beyond, that if she be sold the merchants may offer her first to us. I have let the word be passed in the right way that Palermo will give more than the seraglio price would be likely to be. . . . But she must be sold first, as I fear, for Hassan is not looking for gold alone, but to requite the way she foiled him before."

        As they spoke, there was a sound at the door, where one would enter whom the usher stoutly withstood.

        "What is that?" La Valette asked, with a sharp frown.

        "It is soon seen." Sir Oliver went to the door. "So," La Valette heard his voice, "you were right to do. But you can let him in now."

        He came back, with Don Francisco following. "Here," he said, "is one who should lie flat. But you shall sit, and tell us why you have come."

        Francisco was pale, and his arm was bound to his side, but he was in a mood to forget that.

        La Valette looked at him, and a memory came of his own youth, and of a companion who had had the same look forty years before, when he had been wounded, and would still take his place in the breach at a great need, and whose son was before him now.

        "Don Francisco," he said, "I have just heard that Colonna has your command while you are unfit, which is well, for it could not be in the hands of a better man. I have been asked to give him that post in a more permanent way, and to remove you therefrom. If it be from that cause you are here, you have but to say that it would be poor justice to you (who did well when the boats were sunk, as I have no mind to forget), and I will reserve all till you are more equal to your defence."

        Francisco lifted his eyes to the Grand Master, and it was clear that he found no pleasure in what he heard.

        "No," he said, "I do not protest of that. I am justly served."

        La Valette's eyes, as he heard that, took on a sterner and more questioning look. "Do you mean me to think," he asked, "that it was by your fault that the battery was surprised, and the guns still, when they should have defended the boom?"

        "I must say that, or else lie, which I will not do. . . . But it is of Angelica I must know. . . . There is tale that Yusef is hanged. I must know what you will do now."

        Sir Oliver interposed to reply: "There is still some hope that gold will avail, as it mostly does."

        "I would be sure, rather than hope, she being placed as she is. Do you know where they have her now?"

        "She is not hardly abused by the latest news that the spies bring. She is in a villa some miles away, being there confined with Venetia in the same room."

        "With -? It is a fiend's jest."

        "Well, so it is. It might be worse, as you can see."

        "Is it strongly held?"

        "It is nigh three miles in the Turkish lines. There is no rescue could reach, if you mean that. . . . There are armed guards at each door, and a cordon of men is round it both night and day. Hassan does not mean that she shall twice escape from his power."

        "Be it what distance it may, or were it held by the whole army of Turks, as you may call it to be, I had thought that she would be for the rescue of Christian knights."

        La Valette was stern. "Do you teach duty to me? I have Malta to guard. Should I forget that for a single life, it is there that my shame would lie."

        "But I am shamed, if I do not attempt her aid. . . . Will you tell me how this villa lies, when I shall have passed the Sanglea?"

        Francisco turned to Sir Oliver, as he put this question, but it was La Valette who replied.

        "Oliver, you can be still for the time. It is vain talk, but I will know why he should feel in so shamed a way. . . . Was it by your fault" - he addressed Francisco - "that your cousin came to be there in the night hours?"

        But Sir Oliver would not be still. "I can answer that," he said; "for he has told all to me, by whom it shall come to you. . . . But, by your leave, I should let him go."

        The eyes of the Grand Master and the secretary met, and La Valette knew it to be one of those times when Sir Oliver would not lightly give way. "But, Oliver," he said, "it is madly vain. Shall he waste his life to no use . . .? But I must trust you in this, as I have trusted in larger things."

        La Valette said no more. He stood silently, as having forgotten his purpose to go, gravely regardful, while Sir Oliver drew out a map of the district where the Turkish army was camped, and pointed out where the villa stood in which Angelica was confined. With clear brevity of phrase, he explained the roads and other physical features, and how the Turks were encamped. He spoke as though he were describing that which was within his own lines. When he had done, he looked up to ask: "Can you remember all?"

        "Can I forget?" Francisco rose to go. He asked: "Have you a sword?"

        La Valette loosed one from his side. "I cannot use it," he said, "as I once did; but in your hand it may yet strike a good blow. It is yours, for the sake of one I do not forget."

        Sir Oliver said: "You will need this." He wrote a pass which would enable him to leave the Christian lines by the Bourg gates. "When you show it," he said, "they will point you the way the spies go, where you will not be shot by those who are unaware who you may be."

        Francisco said a word of thanks, and went out, silently watched by the two older men, who were not quick to speak when he was gone.

        "Oliver," La Valette said at last, "you have let him go to a most sure death, which can be to no gain, either to us, or to her whom he seeks to save."

        "So I suppose," Sir Oliver replied. "But it was what I had no choice but to do, for his honour is a soiled rag, both to Malta and her, and I think he has gone in the right way."

        After that, he told all that he knew, and more that he guessed, in which he was seldom wrong.

        The Grand Master said, when he had done, "I must have hanged him for that, as I have hanged others for lesser things. . . . But God has opened a better way." He sighed at a thought he had. "We may pray for his soul tonight," he went on, "with a good will. . . . I suppose there are Turks who will feel his sword." He seemed to find some comfort in that, but as he went to his bed he had the look of a tired and sorrowful man.

CHAPTER XXX

        VENETIA waked to the sound of a closing door, too vaguely heard to judge what it might be. She saw, by the dim light of the lamp, that the bed was empty beside her. She sat up quickly; awake, watchful, alert. Her eyes, swiftly searching the room, saw that Angelica's cap was gone.

        Doubt, anger, fear, contended within her, as she swung her feet lightly over the side of the stately bed, and made for the door. She opened it to listen to a silent house. From the kitchen there came the three deep slow notes of the striking clock. Outside, she could hear the noise of the changing guard. . . . What did it mean? Was Angelica still in the house? Should she give alarm? Had she gone two - three - hours ago? How wild Hassan would be! Would it prove pretext enough to send her to the slave-market, if not to the lash, or to more terrible things? She was innocent of any complicity in Angelica's escape, if escaped she was, but she had seen enough of the world's ways to know that innocence might be a detail irrelevant to the position in which she stood. . . . Was it possible that Angelica had not fled, but been fetched away? The idea was rejected. Venetia was sure that she would not have slept through such an event: would not have slept through Angelica's dressing at all, unless it had been noiselessly done.

        She took clothes in a quick way, but not so that she was careless of how she might look, if she should meet men before she should regain the room. She lifted the lamp, and put it down, thinking that it might be a fault that any movement of hers should be visible from without. There should be moonlight enough. She opened the door again, and after another moment of listening which returned no sound, she went down the corkscrew stair.

        There was silence in the house, and in the kitchen the lamp was out, and Telek gone. Venetia was better acquainted with his habits than Angelica had been. She knew that, though the soldiers who circled the house were changed during the night, the guarding of the doors, which was a duty of those of the inner staff, was undertaken in watches of eight hours, and that Telek's habit was to do his turn on a fireside chair.

        The moonlight fell over the table in a slanting line, and showed where a ducat lay. Telek, pondering the huge sum which was his to earn, and then how it could be achieved, had failed incredibly to pouch that which was his to lift.

        Venetia did not need to be told more. She had read a plain tale. She went silently back, not failing to pick up the coin.

        Should she give alarm? An instinctive habit by which she would be slow to resolve without searching thought, unless she were cornered and forced, held decision back. Then she saw that, if there should be sudden outcry to wake the house, she must not be dressed as she was, and she was quickly back in the bed.

        If she knew how long it was since Angelica got away! She wished she had confided in her, but without resentment for that. "Had she so," she allowed in a candid mind, "she had been pure fool, after what she had known me do."

        She imagined Angelica, with Telek for guide ("who would be one to trust as you must, but no more") creeping among the rocks, and her natural sympathy for those who were hunted by force or law was an instinct to keep her still.

        She was not conscious of any virtue in her resolve (of which we may say there was not much) as she decided at last: "She shall have till the next hour strike, and after that she must use her wits, as I mine." It was after that she began to dream (when would the dreams fail that had brought her far?) that, if Angelica were gone, she might win Hassan's regard, if she could face his first wrath in a skilful way. . . . The hours passed. The guard watched without, and the house was silent within. When the clock struck four, she rose, and put on some clothes in what should appear to be the disorder of haste. She went down, and roused the man who had his watch at the front, with the tale that Angelica was not there.

        It was not a thing that had to be said twice to unlistening ears. It seemed but a moment before the house was loud with clamour and search, and little more before Hassan himself had ridden up, and, black with fury, was directing pursuit.

        In the next hour it seemed that he had the whole army awake. Horsemen had ridden at random speed to warn the outposts on every side. Not waiting for dawn, far out from the environs of the house, intensive search spread over the moonlit scene.

        It was not till all had been done that wrathful energy could contrive that he sent for Venetia, who had courage and experience in such crises of life sufficient to enable her to conceal the fear that reason could not deny.

        "You will tell me," he said, "all that you know. It is the one chance that you have, which may not be much."

        "So I will," she replied, "and you will see that you owe me thanks. It was I who waked the alarm. Had I slept, as you will not say I was not permitted to do, there would have been no stir till the morn, and if she should now be caught (as I should say is a likely thing) it will be to me it is due."

        "I can think such things for myself," he returned, in a cold voice, "and it will be well for you if I shall go by your road. But what I ask is your tale."

        "You asked my tale with a threat which I had not earned," she replied, meeting his frown with a quiet front, though her heart beat hard. "I will tell you all I know, which is not much. . . . I was waked by a clock that strikes loud, so that it can be heard through the house, and I saw that her place was bare. She might have left the bed for a light cause, and, had I turned over and slept, I do not think I should have been greatly wrong, the house being so guarded and barred, and I not having been made her watch; but I looked further, and saw that her cap was gone, and on that I did not pause even to dress, but was most instant to raise alarm."

        "Then," he said, searching her with suspicious eyes, "you must have had cause to think she purposed to fly, or you had been less quick so to conclude."

        "I was so far from that, that I believed she had agreed in her heart that she would do well to be wedded to you. We had talked long on that, and I had so practised, as you desired."

        "It would not have been. Yusef is hanged." A new thought came, and he asked sharply: "Had you heard that? It is that which it must have been!"

        Venetia's look of puzzled wonder was not assumed, as she replied: "Who is he? I cannot guess what you mean."

        "Then there is no need to say more." He did not propose to explain to her that the idea of marrying Angelica had been no more than a last expedient, to prevent her exchange taking her out of his power, and that he had dismissed it at once on hearing that Yusef was dead. He saw, also, at a second thought, that this could not have been more than guessed, whatever knowledge Angelica might have gained, for his motives, or his later change of purpose, had been confided to none. He asked: "She has spoken of flight before?"

        "That she had not. Do you think she would be open to me?"

        Her tone mocked, and Hassan saw that there was reason in that. Still he urged: "But you were alone, and no more than two. There must have been talk."

        "So there was. But she is one who speaks truth in a frank way, and yet has thoughts that she will not show. I have not met one who at times may be harder to read."

        He thought of how Angelica had escaped before, and he did not dispute that.

        "There is this Telek," he said, "who is also gone. You will have seen her talking to him?"

        "Even that I have not. I am amazed that she could have purchased his help. I should have said that he would not be moved by aught to a great risk of his own skin, nor that he was one on whom to rest faith for any pledge he could give."

        "Having sounded him thus?"

        "Will you call me so great a fool? Have I fled? Do you not see I am here? And whereto should I go? It is your favour I seek, which is why I stirred as I did the first moment I found her gone."

        Hassan considered this, and again he saw that it was a plausible defence, and most likely true. He did not mean that Angelica should escape without all concerned feeling his wrath in a way which would be hard to forget, if he let them live. But though he could be ruthless and cruel, even in fantastic modes, as was the way of his race, yet he had no wish to cut off an innocent head if he could find one that deserved it more.

        "I have little doubt," he said, "that they will be caught as the dawn comes, and I will judge all when I have heard their own tale, which the rack may aid." He looked at her with as hard a glance as she had yet had, as he asked: "You swear now that you keep nothing back? It is the one chance you will have. Do you doubt that she fled with this Telek's aid, and has not done him away with some trick?"

        "I have told all I know, except one thing that I have been waiting to say. I have no doubt that it was with Telek she fled. I suppose she went in the night, in a secret way, and persuaded him as he sat at watch, for when I went down, there was this coin on the kitchen board."

        She produced the golden ducat that she had picked up, and Hassan took it, and observed that it was one of Ferrara's mint.

        "Has she a store of these?"

        "She had ten or twelve."

        "Why did you not let it lie? Was it yours to take? Why did you secrete it away?"

        "Let it lie? For how long? When I was calling the guard! I thought it was to be held for your own eye."

        He gave her a better glance than before as he said: "Well, you have answered all in a bold way. If you have told truth, and with nothing hid, you need not have a great fear."

        He went, leaving her well content. She had not meant to show the ducat, which he had taken away, as she supposed that he would; but, as he had pressed her to tell all, she had felt it to be the safer course. Beyond that, what had she concealed? Her tale had been wrong by an hour. But who would discover that? It was a question of when she waked, and who else could say?

        She had over-passed another peril of which her life was too full, by the aid of a cool wit, and having no scruples at all, either to speak or to do.

CHAPTER XXXI

        "You must not go out by the gate," Del Formo said, "even by night, for that would be to ask for notice at once, it being a thing which is not done.

        "There is a place where the bastion is low, and has been shaken into the fosse more than it should, at which we have winked for reasons I need not say (but if the Turks should choose to rush us at that point they would find it an ill choice), and there you could go down without toil, but, as you have no more than one arm in use, you shall have a rope's help. You will go for thirty paces along the fosse, and you will find the counter-scarp in no better case, and very easy to climb.

        "How long you will endure after that is beyond my guess. But I will tell you this. The spies say that they are little observed when they attempt to enter the infidel lines. It is when they return that they must lurk and twist, and that their bellies must worm the ground.

        "We understand this, for we are disposed to act in the same way. For if we catch a man coming in, he will have a smooth tale. He will be Christian at heart (that is if he be of Greek blood, as they mostly are), and so deserting to us, or he will pull a script from his caftan's folds, being a letter to one of our own knights. What can we do? We have no sieve that will sift his tale.

        "But if we catch him when he is on his way back, we have a man with a full crop. If he have writings, they will not be such as he will be glad for us to see.

        "And it will do him no good to say that he was deserting us because he was getting to love Mahound. He can tell few tales that we cannot test, and if he lie he is soon hanged.

        "But we might not do that to a known spy, for there are some of these men who can so contrive that none can tell whom they prefer. They have become of use to both sides, being like a post. They are men that neither trusts but both use. It is likely they are loyal to nothing more than their own necks and the coins they get from both sides.

        "So you may have a safe start. You may creep the fosse knowing that you will be no mark for our men, who will have warning from me, and after that you will not be shot by the Turks in the gloom, even if you are seen, without they first find who you are."

        Francisco thanked Del Formo for this advice, which was better than he had expected to hear. The knight, who was in charge of some length of the bastion of Provence, gave him also the Turkish password for that night, which was something more he had not thought to have, and also a turban to replace the morion which he wore.

        "There will be no use," Del Formo said, "for disguise beyond that; for you are not one who could come into the light, and sustain any lie that I could give you to tell. But you must have a turban to meet the moon. I should advise, if you get but a short space from our own lines, that you advance as one owning the earth, with the password to see you through, and may St. Christopher be your guard."

        Francisco left him at that, being given to a smaller man to be led to the wall, and Del Formo looked after him with a thought that he had seen him for the last time, but there was not much to stir emotion in that, while men died every day, and your own time was fixed for not more than a month ahead.

        Francisco descended the wall, and must stumble somewhat along the fosse, it being more dark than was the open night, and strewn with debris from the round-shot battering of the mound. But he came to the place of which he had been told, and looked up to a light gap where the counter-scarp had fallen in, both lowering itself and raising the floor of the fosse. He clambered out here with little trouble, though with a loud falling of rubble beneath his feet, which would have been his end had he been watched from the wall by those who were not friends.

        As he came up to the level land, he thought he saw the movement of one who was not five yards away, and his sword was half out of its sheath, but the man (if one there were) may have wished to be seen as little as he; and so, after a moment of waiting silence, he went on to the Turkish lines.

        He heard a sentry's call on his right, and bent his course to the left. Then there were voices out of the night from that side, and he swerved again. The ground was hard and broken, having been ploughed by shot and trampled by many feet. He had to give his most heed to that, lest he should lame himself against rocks, or fall to a sudden pit. . . . He came to a low wall of stone, with a beaten path on its right. It was not quite in the direction in which he wished to go, trending too much eastward, toward the shore, but he thought it best to follow it, till he should come to a road which the map had shown. . . . Out of the darkness he was challenged sharply, in a strange tongue. . . . He shouted back the password he had been instructed to say, and walked quickly on. The voice shouted again a peremptory and yet questioning call, to which he replied with the password again. The voice that called had a note of menace now, but it did not pursue, and it was already some distance behind. The next moment, he had come to the road.

        He thought: "I may thank the turban for that. He would not have let a morion by with no more than a wrathful word." But his thoughts were few. He was but aware of the night, and the purpose for which he came. He walked on a silent road, going with an assured mien, as Del Formo had advised him to do. He had no need to ponder or pause, for, now he had found the road, his way was clear by the map he had seen, till he should be near the villa where Angelica was. He remembered each turning, each hill and fall, as Sir Oliver had explained them to be, and the forked road by the little bridge -

        He met no one at all, and he was come to the uphill road which approached the villa he sought, when he found that he must shorten his pace, or he would overtake a group of men who marched in a slack way, as they may do in the reality of war, where its pageantry is of little avail, and especially when they move in the night.

He was the more content to have followed, himself unseen, when he found that their destination was his, and that they were halting before the villa, on the side where the ground sank, the front being approached by a flight of steps. The garden rose round the house, becoming level with the door at the back through which Angelica had fled. Before the front of the house, the moonlight gave him a wide view of open country that fell eastward to meet the sea. He looked up, and saw the belvedere, and near to that a dim light, where he supposed that Angelica lay. He stood at the roadside, in a black shadow of cypresses, and saw what the nature of his problem was likely to be. He might succeed with a first blow. He might come out of the night to slay any sentry he might select. He might slay one or two more of those who would be first to come at their comrade's cry. He felt equal to that. But more would arrive. Though he could kill or scatter them all, it might be to earn no more than the right to beat on a barred door. He did not know what watch there might be in the house, but he saw that, if his single arm should be sufficient to foil the outside guard, he would have short time to get Angelica out before there would be wider alarm. . . . There might be no earthly odds that would make him turn, but he had come to save Angelica, not to kill Turks; and, perhaps equally, though he might not observe the impulse that drove him on, to see her, to confess his folly, to gain forgiveness for the fault that had brought her there.

        But one thing was clear, whatever might be best to do beyond that. It would be stupid to challenge a double guard. He must stand aside till those who were relieved had marched wholly away, and he saw that they would march back along the road where he stood in a shadow that was black enough, but against a wall that he could not quickly scale with one useful arm. He considered climbing it now, and hiding in the cypresses which grew close on its other side, and then elected a bolder and better way, going forward while the movements around the house would be protection for one who need not be closely seen. He found a small gate, where he entered the garden, which spread wide of the house on that side, and went up a narrow twisting path that was further from the house than the cordon were placed. He had little fear of being perceived, the garden being planted thickly with flowering shrubs, from which the air was loaded with strong scents in the August night, offering quick shelter if he should become aware of a step that might come too close.

        He came to the back of the house, as those who were withdrawn assembled below the front. He stopped when he reached a rock-garden that was too open to cross with prudence at such a moment. He drew into a screen of shrubs, through which he could see toward the house. There were two men who talked. Vaguely, uncertainly, for a moment, he thought a shadow passed behind them, coming into the bushes where he was hid. The men's voices were loud. He heard advice: "You should vomit well." Then one turned away. It seemed for a few steps that he would go down by the side of the house, but when the one he left turned to look at the door, he came into the shrubs. Francisco thought: "The man is sick. He is coming to vomit here." He became very still. . . . After a time, there were rustling movements that came close. He perceived that there were two who were coming with a great caution toward the path by which he had approached the house

        He could not tell what it meant, but it was clear that they were as intent as himself that their movements should not be known. Men do not creep through shrubs in the night in a furtive way without cause. They might hunt; but not in a garden which was patrolled. They might burgle; but these men moved away from the house. A wild hope came to his heart, and was put aside, before that which he thought incredible became known for true. Silent, with senses preternaturally alert, as they will be at such physical crises of life, he heard Angelica's voice.

        He could not hear what was said, nor the single low word of reply, but after that the two, who had been almost upon him, turned away to the right, so that they would strike the path by which he had come lower than he had left it.

        There came a joy, sudden and great, to his heart, with the thought that Angelica had escaped, and the tension of spirit under which he had approached to attempt her rescue somewhat relaxed.

        His next mood was a natural doubt, and a fear lest he might do that which would bring ruin on her again. He could not guess who her companion might be, nor what might be the effect of revealing himself; but he saw that, if they should hear him approach, they would think him a certain foe. He would be a fancied danger where they would have real ones more than enough, and might cause them to turn aside from their best way. He saw also that, if he should contrive to follow them at a short distance, he increased the risk of causing discovery and alarm, such as might be fatal to both.

        Yet he was reluctant to lose sight of her, when he had come so near, and, if she should be stopped or pursued, his sword might be a good help.

        He resolved to follow in a distant and cautious way, risking rather to lose sight than to cause alarm; and then to make himself known by a low call, if they should come to some desolate place where it could be done without fear.

        He succeeded in this so far that he did not draw observation from others upon himself, such as would be dangerous to those who were no great distance ahead; and so long, that he was able to learn with certainty that they were not aiming to reach St. Angelo's walls, but rather that part of the island which the Turks had first overrun when they landed in St. Thomas's Bay, and which was now spoiled and bare, not being much occupied by the Turks, nor a place where any of Maltese blood would be likely to make his home.

        He did not wholly avoid the suspicion of those he followed, for there came a time when Telek paused to listen, having a vague doubt that they were pursued in a furtive way. But there was silence while they were still, and then, when they started again, and his suspicions recurred, there rose two noises at once to render listening vain. A Turkish battery suddenly opened with all its guns against the Sanglea, as might often be now during the night, when Mustapha would allow his foes no assurance of rest, and there was also the noise of a company of men who were marched to the front line.

        At this time, they were on rather high and open ground, which was divided into small fields by low walls of stone. The men who marched were on a road at a lower level than theirs. Telek led in a crouching position, so that they should keep as low as the wall. It was a slow method to choose, and worse for him, he being a large man. But he knew that there was still some time of darkness ahead, and he did not mean to lose either his head or the offered reward. But there were moments when he must rest with an aching back.

        It was a mode of progression, however slow, which was not easy to keep in view. Francisco resolved to try to come closely here, and then call Angelica's name, delaying only till the men who marched should be gone, and the night still. He thought to do this by choosing the other side of the wall, and moving more rapidly than they would be likely to do. But when he rose, thinking that they would be near, he could not perceive them at all. He thought that they might have heard his approach and become still. He waited awhile, till they should have courage to move again. Still hearing no sound, he called in a low voice, but had no response. He felt sure that they could not have gone far ahead. He crossed the wall, and crept some way back on the other side.

        Here he found an explanation he did not like. There was another wall on this side, at right angles to the one he had followed. Doubtless, they had turned there, while he had gone on, there having been no similar wall on his side.

        He followed this, but was soon in doubt. There was a gap in the wall. Had they gone through that, or kept on? Other doubts followed, of a similar kind. He could but keep in the same direction which they had previously held, for which the moon was sufficient guide.

        As he went on, the night woke. Behind him, the villa sprang into light. There were noises, and distant cries. It was easy to guess that there had been discovery of Angelica's flight, but had he come no further than that? And what should he do now? It would be hard to escape through the Turkish lines, now that there had been sound of alarm. It would be death to be on such open ground when the light should come. He thought less of his own peril than of those he would aid if he could, but how should he reach them now? It would be their first thought to make themselves hard to find.

        Down the road, to which he was now close, a rider came at speed, his loose burnous blowing back on the wind. Doubtless he rode to warn the outposts who kept sleepless watch against Marshal Couppier's raids that a prisoner had got free.

        Francisco crouched under a wall, doubting what he should do. He knew that he had betrayed his military trust in a way that the Grand Master would not be quick to forgive. He had thought less of that than he otherwise might, because his mind had been obsessed with Angelica's peril, and his equal betrayal of her. He had thought either to die in this attempt, or to bring her back, having redeemed one-half of his offence, and so to face that which he could not change. But it seemed that, if she were to escape, it would be likely to be without aid from him. Even in that, Fate had rejected him as unworthy or unrequired.

        He saw now, more clearly than imagination had conceived, that the extent of territory that was occupied by the Turks, stretching from the great harbour to Marsa Scala Bay, was too wide to be closely occupied by an army which may not, at this time, have totalled more than 23,000 men, of whom the far greater part were entrenched in positions of attack, or stationed in support of the batteries that surrounded the Maltese lines. To pass the outposts, either at front or rear, might normally be a dangerous, but it could not be less than a very possible venture. But it would be harder - much harder - now that Angelica's flight had been discovered, and there would be alert watch on all sides for a prisoner of such value, and one whom Hassan would be furious to lose twice. Much harder, also, would it be to find concealment within the lines, where there would be active search. A wild thought came, that he should go back to St. Angelo, and call for volunteers who would join him in the knightly folly of attempting his cousin's rescue from the peril in which she stood. . . . He did not doubt that, after the proof he had made that the Turkish lines could be passed in the night, there would be those of sufficient hardihood to give him support. But reason told him that the hours of darkness were nearly done, that Angelica might now be no easier for her friends than her foes to find, and, most definitely of all, it was a thing which could not be attempted without the Grand Master's consent, which it was sure that he would not give.

        To sally out in any force, large or small, was to abandon the strength of stone, on which he relied to outface a foe who must have been five to one at this time, even when what remained of the island militia is added on the Maltese side, and the principle was the same whether it were tone with twenty or two thousand men. Knowing the Grand Master, it was absurd to suppose that he would be influenced by the fate of a single life, to deviate, though it were by no more than a yard, from his plans for Malta's defence.

        Being in such confusion of doubt, it was an impulse of feeling, rather than a reasoned decision, by which he followed in the direction in which he supposed Angelica to have gone.

        Angelica, at this time, was not more than three hundred yards ahead, following Telek down a rocky path to the road with no concealment at all, that being what Telek had told her to do.

        She came in doubt and fear, for she saw that, had her companion been the best knight in the world, they were in a desperate case now that the alarm had been loudly raised, and it was plain that he was much less than that.

        From the moment that it had become clear that their escape was known, he had sunk to irresolution, and a fear that he could not hide.

        He said now that their best chance would be to descend to the road, where they could make more rapid progress than over the fields. Haste was their one chance. She could not say he was wrong, though she failed to see how haste would avail on a road on which warning had gone before. She knew only that she followed a cunning and frightened man whom she could not trust, and in whose power she was in a most absolute way. He was stronger than she. He was the only guide that she had. If she should run, he could probably outpace her for a short spurt. She was weaponless, and he had a sword, and a pistol was in his belt. If he should decide that she would be better dead, it would not be easily avoided by her.

        That had, in fact, been in active debate in his mind, as they had crawled over the hill. He thought of the offered reward, for which he had a great greed. But it could not be paid to a dead man. Life is more even than gold, and for his he had now a most urgent fear.

        If he were caught, as he saw now to be a most likely thing, the chance that Hassan would spare his life was not worth a groat. He would be lucky if he were not taken alive, for it would be strange indeed if Hassan should give him an easy death.

        There came one hope to a cunning, desperate mind. Could he say that Angelica had slipped out by a trick, or perhaps when he dozed, and that he had followed her without giving alarm, knowing that the only hope of mercy for himself would be that he should be the one who would bring her back? It was a poor tale, and a poor hope even if it should be believed, but it was the best he could do. A trapped rat will try to squeeze through a small hole. He remembered the ducat that he had left on the kitchen board. He must spin a tale around that, and, if it had been found, it would give support to less provable words. . . . It was with these thoughts in his mind that he had debated whether it would be best to kill her with a thrust in the back, and say that he had pursued her, and struck to prevent her escape.

        Had it seemed best for his skin, he would have done it with no scruple at all, and it was fortunate for Angelica that the probable consequences were ambiguous to his own mind. If she were dead, she could not contradict his tale, which she would otherwise be likely to do. That was to the good. But he had a well-founded belief that Hassan would prefer to recover her alive, rather than dead. A sufficient reason for having killed her would be difficult to contrive. The better plan would be to go on while there might be any hope of getting through the lines, and to be found in the act of dragging back a recovered captive if discovery should come closely upon their heels.

        It was with an obscure idea that this programme would have more verisimilitude if it were performed on the road (for how should he, more than another, have discovered her lurking in the dark fields?), but perhaps urged more strongly by the desire to bring the event to a prompt issue, whether for good or ill, which is natural to some natures when nervous cowardice is in control, that he had urged the dubious advantages of the open road.

        They had reached it, but had not trodden its stony surface for more than twenty or thirty yards when there came the sound of a running pursuit. After the first horsemen had been sent out to warn the outposts and contain the fugitives, footmen had been scattered in all directions to round them up. Hassan had sent them not by the roads only, but widely scattered over the fields, with promise of rich reward to those who should win the chase. But it was natural that they who came by the roads should make quicker advance than those who spread over pathless fields.

        Angelica looked at the man to whom she had given more trust than she would have done at a lighter need. Were they to try the chance of the dark fields again, before pursuit would come up? Even now there was time to get away, it might be unobserved, if no moment were lost. Or was he of the sort to pull out his sword, hearing that there were not many who came? In her desperate fear of being recaptured, and all that it was likely to mean, she felt that she would strike a good blow herself, if she had a weapon of any kind, before their hands should be upon her again.

        But he did not offer either to fight or fly. With a sudden movement, he caught her arm in both hands in a brutal grip.

        He shouted: "Ho, comrades! Comrades, I have her here! She is caught!"

        He snarled at her in a lower voice: "Would you have brought me to death? Will you lie now? Will you say I have not caught you in hot pursuit?"

        He shook her in a rough way, though she made no effort to resist, or to get free, having too much pride for a useless strife.

        "Would you not rather win the reward," she asked, "than go back to be flogged, as I think you will, if you get no worse?"

        "Would you tempt me again," he asked, "as you did with the ducat I would not lift?"

        He seemed to be endeavouring to convince his own mind of the tale he had made, or to practise assertion against her own. He began to drag her backward upon the road.

        There was time for this, for the men who pursued had ceased to come on. They seemed to have turned to face some trouble upon their rear. Telek slackened his pace as he became aware, by the light of a breaking moon that had been clouded till now, that steel clattered and shone.

        A man, turbaned and tall, came forward, with a bare sword, leaving others upon the ground.

        Telek stood for a moment in hesitation, doubting what it might mean, as was not easy to guess.

        Francisco called: "Angelica, is it you?" in the Spanish tongue, which he did not know.

        At that, she wrenched to get free. She called: "Francis, to me!" in a sudden wonderful hope.

        Into Telek's mind came a guess that was half true, and an idea by which he might yet save his skin from scars, or his neck from the sabre's sweep.

        Here was some rescue intended for her, of which but one man remained, and he, if the faint light told truth, with a bandaged arm. He had a further thought that Angelica must have deceived him as to the details of her escape, which had never been meant to depend on him, nor would he have had any reward. But now, if he could show a Christian dead by his sword (and perhaps others upon the road?) he could make a better tale than he had hoped to be able to tell. He might have not stripes, but reward!

        Thoughts are swift, so that he had time for these, for which his life would otherwise have been less than enough. He pulled his sword free, a curved scimitar in which he had a skill he was apt to boast, still grasping Angelica, whom he was unwilling to loose, in his other hand. But Francisco's coming did not pause, as that of a man should when he is met with a bare blade. His sword came straight and swift as a cobra strikes, and when the scimitar swept round to turn it away, it struck a blade that was through Telek's neck, and half a foot out beyond.

CHAPTER XXXII

        ANGELICA stood in joy that was careless of the man who bled to death at her feet, or of the menace of farther things.

        "Francis, are you hurt? How did you come here? Are you alone?"

        "I came to give you aid if I could, you being snared by my fault."

        "That I was not. I should have stood back, or taken a better heed. . . . But you are not fit to be here! You were sore hurt, as I heard. . . . Were you single to attack those who pursued?"

        "There were but three, on whom I ran at the back. Two are down, and one fled."

        "Then we should not stand here."

        That was plain, but where were they to go?

        Angelica looked down on a man who had become still. She did not regard that his blood had soaked one of her own feet. She said: "There is a pistol we ought to have." In this place to which she had come by her own will, she was not singular if she were forgetting that it was not a Spanish señorita's business to scuffle in bloody bouts. There were few women in St. Angelo's bourg who would not learn in the next few weeks to fight with Turks on a failing wall. . . . There were two hundred children who were being practised with slings, that they might help the defence of the Sanglea at its next assault. . . .

        Francisco said: "Yes. We will have that." He knelt down, laying his bare sword on the ground. Angelica saw that he had only one hand to use. She must give him aid.

        "It was so," she thought, "that La Cerda fought at the last." Was there an omen in that? She put the dread away with a steadfast will. By Mary's grace, it might still come to a better end, as she would be firm of faith to believe. . . . It was strange that Venetia's two lovers should have been disabled in a similar way. At least - perhaps it was less than fair to give Francisco that name. He must know better now. And then the doubt rose - she was not the only one in the Turkish camp. Had he ventured here in truth solely for her? Or was there another whom he could not put from his heart?

        She thought: "I will not be vexed by a false doubt. There should be true words between those who walk as we on the edge of death." She asked: "Francis, did you come in truth only for me, or is there another whom we should save?"

        Francisco was handling the pistol with care with his one hand in the faint light of the dawn, seeing that it was loaded and primed. He turned to her with an expression she could not see, but his voice had a bitter tone.

        "Can you doubt that? Well, I should not complain. It is what I have earned from you."

        "You must not say that! I did but ask that a doubt might die. You know I was ever one for the plain word." Her arm came to his neck, as it had not done since their childhood days. His cheek felt her lips. "Francis, we are friends again - it may be for the last hours?" There were tears from both. But whether they came to a new accord as lovers or friends, it would have been hard for themselves to say.

        They rose from the side of the dead man with a new courage and hope, the source of which must have been in themselves, for it had no other nurturing soil. He said: "We must get from here. There will be full light in an hour."

        But which way should they go? To attempt to pass the Turkish lines, either at front or rear, did not seem sane to attempt, now that they would be warned and alert, nor could there be much hope that they would stay in the fields unfound.

        Angelica had a better thought: "When Venetia fled, she brought her boat to the harbour head, and she landed (that was by night) on a lonely shore. If we could get there - but it is vain, for you could not swim with that arm!"

        "We might find a boat. It is the best hope that we have."

        They set out over the fields, having for compass the dawn from which they must turn away.

CHAPTER XXXIII

        THE Grand Master was in Sir Oliver's room. Assembled here were all the Commanders who could be spared from the walls, for there was news from the Viceroy's court.

        Commander Salvago, the Grand Master's envoy at Palermo, sent his own account of a scene which himself had made on the palace steps. Other letters, which had been smuggled in by the same hand, gave various accounts of the stir that had been in the Viceroy's court, and what they deduced therefrom. The Grand Master read, and his own deduction was soon made.

        Passion shook in his voice, as he said: "Brothers, I have been silent till now. I would neither give excuse for offence by a petulant word, such as might be swelled in the mouths of men, nor would I think evil of Christian Kings. But I must tell you that which we have to face, and that the word of Spain is a cloaked lie. Would Garcio speak so of his own will? He is one I have known too long. He palters between his master and us, hoping that he may have Philip's smile, and yet save us at last; and he will find that he has worked for a poor wage, for it is on him, when Europe regards our graves, that Philip will throw the shame. Is it not ever the fate of those who let honour go for a king's regard? But I say still that Garcio would not act so of his own choice. He is the tool of a meaner man.

        "Salvago says that, being moved by news of how we had bled at the Sanglea, and how the Turks press on all sides, so that it may be said, as it were, that we breathe with pain, he spoke to the Viceroy apart, pleading that the promised aid should be instant to our relief Might it not well be so urged? Is not Italy full of swords? Does it lack galleys or gold? Is not the day long past when we were promised that their sails should appear?

        "So he said, and what answer did Garcio give? If he should come with those who could be quickly arrayed, they might prove too weak, to the shame of Spain. We must not risk that. Shame of Spain! Can it have more than it now has, as the weeks go?

        "And then, if he gather an army and a great fleet, such as will be sure to prevail, it may be too late! Should he risk that? It is to be considered with care. He would talk more on another day!

        "And when Salvago urged him again, as he was loyal to us to do, what did the Viceroy say then? We have bravely fought, and much honour is ours. Should we not make terms with the Turks, and withdraw, as we did from Rhodes, leaving Malta to them?

        "Now, by the passion of God, is it for our honour we fight and die? That would be but a poor gage for men who have sworn our vows. Is it wonder that Salvago was so moved that he walked out, and denounced the Viceroy aloud on the palace steps, so that a crowd gathered and heard? It was not our honour of which he spoke, it was Europe's shame.

        "Was Garcio wroth thereat, as one would be who should be so denounced, doing honest part? No, he was smooth still! But he saw such stir at his doors that he knew something must be said, if not done.

        "So he has called a great Council of War! All the princes of Italy are to meet to decide whether we are to be relieved, or if they would more wisely leave us to die. And it can be little less than a moon's change before such assembly can be convened and its wisdom heard.

        "Brothers, I know not what is to come, which is of the counsel of God, but here I swear, by His Holy Name, that I will yield no inch of this land to infidel feet that is not taken by bloody force, and it is here that our flag shall fly or our Order end."

        His voice sank to another note as he looked round and asked: "Do I say well?" His eyes searched sharply for any sign of dissent, as one may look for a hidden snake, and being satisfied with the deep murmur of response from those whom his words had moved to something of his own passionate faith, he went on:

        "Brothers, I would not paint with too black a brush, and there is one man who is strong of heart, and constant to be our friend."

        He spoke of the Genoese admiral, John Andrew Doria, who had put forward a bold plan, which it was not yet known whether the Viceroy would accept.

        Doria had sailed into Messina harbour, bringing such galleys as he controlled, and with a plan for Malta's relief which he pledged his word, being that of one of the best admirals of the day, that he could carry through to success.

        He did not ask for a great fleet to destroy that of the Turks, nor for a great army, such as would defeat them in open array. He said: "Give me 2,000 men, and store of all munitions and goods such as men are glad to have in a leaguered place, and enough of light oared galliots to transport them across (and he could name the ships he required, which were then at hand), and I will run them up to St. Angelo's quays before the Turkish fleet will become aware." He would promise to have them there before the Turks would have weighed anchor or cut cables, to come out of their own harbour to block the way.

        So he said he would do; and should he fail in the expected surprise, his galleys would be too swift to be overhauled, so what evil could be?

        He allowed, should his plan succeed, they might have entered a harbour it would be less easy to leave, and even that they might be destroyed. But he asked, what of that? If the men be landed alive, and the stores tumbled on to the quay, let the galleys go. With such strong support for the valour that Malta showed, it was a likely thing that the Turks would lose heart, and leave. Or, if they did not, then the defence could be stoutly made, and the Turks kept to the outside of the wall.

        That was Doria's plan, which had a good sound, and might have come to success. But what the Viceroy did (as the Grand Master would hear on a later day) was to answer him with fair words, and to propose that he should sail to Genoa in haste to collect stores, saying that it would be better that he should be later by a few days than to sail with less than full holds. So Doria hastened north, using oars when the wind failed, and was soon back, thinking that the Viceroy would have assembled men, and been ready to put all aboard.

        But what he had done was to send two galleys under a captain whose name is in a doubt which it can be pleased to keep, to sail along Malta's coast, and give his report on Doria's plan, which was no more than that it would be likely to fail: being what he was expected to say. So Doria's galleys were warped again to Messina's quay.

        Now the Grand Master told of Doria's plan, not as expecting the Viceroy to give it birth, but as one who would do justice to all. He urged his knights, as he was himself resolved, to put thought of human succour out of their minds. It must be fought out by themselves alone, and to the last sword they had, and the last day that they could endure. If they were to fall, they would fall as St. Elmo fell.

        And while they talked thus, looking with clear eyes in the face of death, the door which was at the side opened, and Angelica came into the room.

        She was half-clad and drenched, under a borrowed cloak, and there was little of youth in a face that was white with fatigue alike of body and mind, and a fear that she could not still.

        She made a motion as though she were in doubt to withdraw, seeing how the room was filled, but Sir Oliver was quick to step forward, and draw her to a seat, speaking with more emotion than his voice would often be heard to bear: "I praise the Mother of God, to whom I have been frequent in prayer," and other voices were not slow to speak in a like way, knowing or guessing who she must be, and having heard how she had been taken away, and for what cause she had Hassan's hate, so that she could feel that she was among friends.

        "Are you free from hurt of those fiends?" the Grand Master asked, and with more meaning than his words held, seeing a look in her eyes which should not be there.

        "By God's grace," she said, "I have neither shame nor hurt. But I am glad you are here, for it is you I should have been seeking to see. . . . I will ask you now, before all these knights, have I done that which I could for Malta, since you allowed that I should stay here? Am I too bold if I ask a boon which is much to me?"

        "You have done more than well," the Grand Master replied, "and as to this time when you were seized, it has not been hidden that it was your warning by which there was rescue near for the guns, which your cousin's treason had cast away."

        "By your leave," she said, "that is not the word. He was in a great fault, being beguiled, but treasoned he could not be." She would have risen, but Sir Oliver's hand on her shoulder restrained her from that. "It is his pardon, I ask, as the last boon that I ever will."

        "The wrong he did," the Grand Master replied, "is not one to be lightly weighed, nor to be put aside by a woman's prayer. But he has appealed, as I suppose, to a tribunal which will not err. . . . You must tell her, Oliver, what he has so vainly essayed to do."

        "You will tell me less than I know," she said. "And that which he essayed was not vain, for you must not think that I have escaped by a separate chance. It is by his sword I am here."

        "That," Sir Oliver said, "is a good word, for it will have been consolation to him, who had done you a great wrong."

        "Do you say," the Grand Master asked, "that he is here now?" His tone was kindly enough, but with a gravity of reserve which showed that he would not be lightly swayed.

        "No," she replied, "I would he were, for it is for his life I fear. But it is by his sword that I am."

        "Did he get you forth?" The Grand Master asked. "For to have done that is a most marvellous thing. Brothers," he turned to those around him to ask, "does it not show that, where there is courage to so attempt, God will work beyond the counsel of man?"

        "It was not as you may suppose," she replied, "nor quite as he had forecast his attempt; but that he saved me to be here now there are three to prove who lie dead in the Turkish lines."

        Sir Oliver said: "You had better tell us the tale."

        Sir John de la Fere spoke: "She should have wine before that."

        There was a flask found, and a cup, at which she drank once, and let it stand, being forgotten in what she said.

        She told shortly how she had been captured and mured, and how she had escaped by her own art, and all were silent to hear her speak, until she came to the alarm that had been roused after she fled, when the Grand Master spoke in a sharp way: "It was that viper again. It is wonder that such can be bred of a Christian stock. She shall see a near death if she come again to our hands."

        To which she answered: "So I have thought it was." And then, finding Venetia more fit to forgive since she knew that she had lost hold of Francisco's heart, and her mind being clear, and yet in a tired way which was not easy to rein, she went on about her, saying what she had thought before.

        "But I should say there are worse than she. She but seeks an unshaken place, paying the world the while as it was first to pay her. Had she come by a clean road she might have borne a good name, and even lived to the praise of God."

        The Grand Master listened to this, which he understood, being one who had given much thought to the natures of men before Malta's need had chased all else from his mind, but he was not complaisant in his reply.

        "Had she come by a road where no pits were digged, it is that you mean, and it would be one that no feet have found. Nor while there are fiends that are loose from hell will such ever be, for they are active to dig. But there is one thing I will know. How did you come to be in that battery during the night, that you could be betrayed by your cousin and her?"

        "I was not so betrayed, but rather failed, in that I was not fully awake to the quick dangers of war. . . . But I was there with a double cause, both to give succour to one who fled, as she would have had us believe, from tortures she had endured at the Turks' hands, and to be alert if there should be need in another way."

        The Grand Master frowned over this reply, and Sir Oliver thought that she would have done better with fewer words, but when Valette spoke he said: "I had guessed the truth, but not that it would be so honestly told. . . . How did you fare beyond that?"

        Angelica went on to tell how she had been pursued, and of the betrayal that Telek tried, and how Francisco had come when she would otherwise have been in worse case than before she fled, so that those by whom she would have been caught were either scattered or slain.

        Passing over such things as were private to him and her, she told how they had made for the harbour head, finding it to be a bare and desolate way, and meeting none, though they heard voices at times, and had remained very still till they had receded from where they were.

        "When we reached the waterside," she said, "it was past dawn, and we could see some distance away, but there was none in sight, nor any boat, such as we had hoped we might find. Francis was unable to swim as I did, his arm being so hurt, but he would have me come, and would not leave me while I remained, so that, as the light spread, my delay made his peril more.

        "Seeing that, and as he urged that he would have a better chance, being alone, to come back in his own way, I did not longer refuse. But I have a great fear that he will not survive, for they will be active on every side, and I should say that his strength was about done."

        "What is it you ask for your cousin's name?" De Valette's voice was grave, and Sir Oliver, who knew him best, was in doubt of what he would be likely to say.

        "I ask, if he return, as I have a great fear that he will not do, that the past may be blotted out, both for evil and good."

        "If he die," the Grand Master said, "having bought your life at the greatest price that a man can give, I will say that he has done all that he might to redeem his fault, and in our annals there shall be nothing writ beyond the service he did in mounting the Santa Martha's guns where they were potent to vex our foes, and also that when the Turks came he used his sword in a valiant way.

        "Shall it be otherwise held if he come back alive, which is, at most, a faint hope? I should say, no; but we will hold that his return is by the mercy of God, which we will not mar." He looked round on the assembled knights and, seeing no dissent, he went on: "The battery which he ruled has passed to another knight. That he has lost. But I will give him a new command, in which I have some hope that he will not fail."

CHAPTER XXXIV

        MUSTAPHA had called a Council of War. Angelica's escape, which was much to her, and which disturbed Hassan's mind more than it would have been vexed by a larger loss, was nothing to him. He thought of the passing days, and of the report which Soliman expected to have with each galley he sent home, either for supplies, or with a cargo of wounded men.

        Like the Grand Master, he had had reports from the Viceroy's Court, where he had many spies. They were not as sure as those the Grand Master read, being gossip brought from the street and the palace stairs, and observations of those who came and went, and of what galleys were in the ports, and of the enlisting of men.

        But they told much, and suggested more; and Mustapha resolved that, for the final stages of the reduction of Malta's knights, there should be plans clearly agreed, so that none of those who shared his command could afterwards say that he had known of a better course.

        It was a summons Hassan could not ignore, and he set out for the country house of a rich knight of Auvergne, which Mustapha had made a residence for himself, furnishing it in the Turkish style; but first ordering that the search should not be relaxed until Angelica should be found.

        It was to be intensive toward the rear of the Turkish lines, for it was in that direction that Telek and two others had been found inexplicably dead on the road, all having been slain by the straight thrusts of a Christian sword. The man who fled (having a wound of the same kind to justify his retreat) had a strange tale of a giaour with a single arm, who had appeared from the moonlit sky. Hassan called and thought him a fool, but was aware of a thrill of fear, to his own contempt, for there was a vision before his eyes of a Christian sword that was sweeping down, which he would be too late to avoid, and it was in the hand of a one-armed man.

        He decided, as Telek had done in his last minute of conscious life, that Angelica must have escaped at a time which had been previously agreed, and by a concerted plan. She must have joined those, one or more, who had been waiting for her. That did not explain why Telek had died when it appeared that he had been aiding her, nor why (as it seemed) La Cerda should have come from the grave for the help of one who had not been mistress to him. But Hassan saw that it was as near the truth as he was likely to get, till he should have Angelica in his hands again and could obtain the explanation from her. This he still had some hope to do, for the horsemen who had ridden first to give the alarm had arrived at the rearward outposts before the time when Telek and those others must have been slain, and by implication it followed that Angelica had not got away when that warning had been received; and after that there was good reason to think that the outposts had not been passed in the direction which it appeared that she must have been aiming to reach. . . .

        The Council of War was long, for it was not the Moslem way to debate in haste, and there was much to resolve.

        The reports of Mustapha's Palermo spies made it clear that there was no present danger that the Viceroy would assemble either army or fleet in such force as to challenge the Turkish arms. That was good; but the news was more disquieting when it dealt with what might be on a later day. Salvago's oration from the palace steps, and the excitement which had disturbed the city thereon, were indications that Italy might soon be stirred to a mood which even the Spanish King could not ignore. There had been some leakage, too, of Doria's plan, which, if it were to avail, should have been secret and swift, and the possibility that relief should be rushed into St. Angelo's citadel must be considered, and measures taken to frustrate such attempt.

        It was agreed, after long debate, that it was a first necessity that the beleaguered garrison should not receive any support, and to secure this result the entrance to St. Angelo's outer harbour must be watched and held, be the cost little or much, and that meant in so great a force that nothing less than an assembly of Europe's fleets would be sufficient to break through it.

        Eighty galleys were to be put into fighting shape, even though some men who were now in camp must go back to the sea, and some guns that had been landed reshipped; and these were not to lie at anchor henceforth but to cruise outside the great harbour, except only when tempests blew.

        The question of who was to command so large a fleet was not quickly resolved. It was a position to which Piali had the first claim, with Hassan as a clear second. But it was a post which neither desired. The fleet was not intended to fight, but rather to show such force that any probable foe would be frightened away. If St. Angelo should fall by a land assault, it was to those who ordered the storm that the praise would go. There would be little for him who had done no more than make a splash with his galleys' oars in patrol of the Maltese coast. Had there been assembly of Christian fleets, with prospect that the result of the siege might be decided by naval war, there might have been opposite words from those which were now exchanged between the two admirals of the sea.

        Hassan said that the command must go to Piali, by right not only of great deeds of the past as leader of Turkey's fleet, but because that fleet was so much larger than that which he had been able to bring from the Barbary coast.

        Piali, with weaker logic but equal resolve, said that, had they been in more Eastern waters, it was a right which he would have expected and claimed. On Egypt's or Syria's coasts only Turkey's admiral could command the Ottoman fleet. But here, in waters where Tripoli's galleys were accustomed to represent the combined Moslem power, by the same courtesy he must stand aside.

        It was an argument which would have had more force had Turkey and Tripoli been equal allies, or if it could have been supposed that Piali would have consented that Hassan should take command of the whole fleet had there been a major naval battle in view, with himself in the second place.

        Mustapha, stroking a beard which hid most of the cynical smile with which he listened while these courtesies were changed, saw that it was time to intervene with the proposal which he had intended before they met.

        "I can suppose," he said, turning to Hassan as he spoke, "that you would not willingly leave the Sanglea after the repulses our arms have had until you have brought it down; and I would propose, as Admiral Piali does not desire to assume active command of the half of a fleet which is his to rule as he will, that he should consent to give that to your own lieutenant, Candelissa, than whom one of more veteran valour or knowledge of these seas it would not be easy to name."

        It was a solution wise in itself, and to which even Piali could not object; and having resolved that the road of succour to the besieged should be so heavily barred, they went on to discuss the means by which they should complete the pulling down of a weakened prey.

        Hassan was to continue to concentrate upon the Sanglea, to which he could not demur if he would, for a change in command at that place, after the failure of the first attacks, would have been dishonour to him, and that the more if it should soon afterward fall, even though that might be from weakening of earlier wounds.

        And as Mustapha proposed that Piali should undertake the assault of St. Angelo and the Bourg, he must also show a face of content, having that which might be considered the greater task, and for which he had pleaded before.

        That Mustapha did not now take specific control at either front may be held proof enough that he had not less than a strong doubt that the downfall of Malta's knights would not come till they had inflicted a further repulse upon their outnumbering foes; but when he counted their lessening strength, and considered that they would now be isolated beyond relief, he had a confident hope that their resistance would not much longer endure.

        It had become a question of the determination with which he would press the attack, the prodigality with which he would use the resources he had, both in weapons and men; and he saw now, in a cautious but very resolute mind, that failure had become the one thing that he could not afford to face. The cost of the invasion had been so great already, its losses so high, that to retire defeated had become an intolerable, as it must surely be an avoidable, shame.

        The news from Palermo convinced him that there would be at least some further weeks before the Viceroy would organise relief on a scale which the fleet to be put under Candelissa's command could not easily drive away. It must be his part to use every hour of that time, so that there would be no danger that it would be less than enough.

        There was another reason why he should hasten the final agony which St. Angelo was to feel, in the fact that sickness had broken out in his army in what threatened to be epidemic form, and he knew enough of war to dread it more than any hurt that could come from the cannon on St. Angelo's walls. His Arabian physicians, with a degree of knowledge and skill which is not lightly to be despised, were fighting an outbreak of the bloody flux which had already prostrated some hundreds of men.

        It was dusk when the Council broke up, having resolved that St. Angelo and the Sanglea should be subjected to four days of intensive bombardment from every side, after which there was to be a demonstration of attack at all points, in which the whole army would be employed with a concentrated assault upon the Sanglea's battered and weakened walls.

CHAPTER XXXV

        HASSAN rode away well content with the resolutions to which the Council had come, for he thought that his corsairs had the easier task, the Sanglea having been more weakened than the lines of the Bourg (except, perhaps, some parts of the bastion of Castile), and having been less strong at the first. The siege of St. Angelo might be held to be the most important command, but it would be a poor choice that would fail there rather than succeed at the Sanglea.

        Unlike Piali, who had come to the Council as the centre of a gaily-glittering group of lieutenants and guards, Hassan rode alone, being less concerned with the pageantry than the fact of power; and, being content with the resolutions agreed, his thoughts turned the more readily back to that subject which had engaged them before.

        There was one question that filled his mind - should he learn, on arriving at his own headquarters, that Angelica had been found, or must he reconcile himself to the idea that she had foiled him a second time?

        Bitter as the thought was, he had already accepted its possibility in a fatalistic mind, which, though it might be free from (what he would have considered) the grosser superstitions of Christianity, was yet possessed by belief in the activities of many unseen powers, both evil and good.

        When he considered the mystery of those who had been found dead, with Telek inexplicably among them, and the tale of wonder told by the wounded man, he did not assume that there must be some simple reasonable solution to a puzzle of which he had not the key. His mind, even against the efforts of better judgement and conscious will, wandered among dark imaginations of the interference of malignant jinns.

        How should a Christian knight - one, at least, who had wielded a Christian sword - have appeared in the night to Angelica's aid, some miles within the Turkish lines? One who had spirited her strangely away, after slaying the Turk who had assisted her escape to that point when his use had ceased? - One who had but one active arm? - As had been La Cerda's state at the last, who (as he was now inclined to believe) had died by his own hand a fortnight before, and whose spirit would be active to work him ill.

        He recalled that it had never been more than a presumption that Angelica had escaped by swimming from the deck of the Flying Hawk. Within a few hours of her disappearance he had been attacked by the Andalusian galleys, and it had been a natural conclusion that she must have reached and warned them by transit of the intervening water. But was it a natural - even a possible - thing for her to have done? And to so have foiled him not once but twice! And each time in a manner which natural explanation would not lightly resolve! Was it strange if he asked himself if she were not befriended by one of the dark spirits of fire, who are said to serve the enemies of the True Faith, to their own ruin at last?

        It would be too much to say that he believed the explanation that superstition proposed, but as he rode he pondered it in a troubled mind. . . .

        Francisco had spent the day in the hills, in a narrow cleft of rock that was less than a cave, and so placed that it would not attract the suspicions of any searcher who did not stumble directly upon it.

        Being resolved that he would not die, if any privation or pain of the passing hours could preserve his life, he had lain there through the whole day till the light should fail. He had been without water or food. For some time, he had been exposed to the direct rays of the midday sun, with but a few inches of shadow toward which he could shrink beneath the hot face of the rock.

        As the night darkened, he shook off an intermittent, uneasy sleep, and rose on unsteady feet, to creep, if he could, through the Turkish lines. The night was not too dense for him to look down on the great harbour and to see the black outlines of St. Angelo's towers, in which lights began to appear. Lights twinkled in the hills and over the plain, showing the Turkish encampments, the batteries that now circled St. Angelo and the Sanglea, and the lines that their outposts held.

        With ears alert to every sound that the night wind brought, he followed a road that seemed deserted at that hour. It may have been of little use for the ways that the Turks would go, and they who would have used it for their own routine were either scattered or dead. . . . Behind him, there came the sound of a single rider, and a sudden hope stirred in the fatigue of his clouded mind. If he had a horse. . . . It was surely worth the attempt. . . . He drew back into a shadow of wayside trees.

        With no more light than was given by stars that had brightened as darkness fell, he looked on a bare road, along which Hassan came, riding at no great pace, for he was lost in his own thoughts. Francisco drew out his sword, and put it back, seeing that he must stop the horse with his one hand, or he might do no more than to make his presence known to a man who could ride away. Better do nothing than that. He staked all on a sudden rush which would seize the rein.

        Had Hassan been alert of mind at the time, and aware of surrounding things, it must have come to another end. As it was, having learnt to live on a horse's back even before he had keep his feet on a swaying deck, he was not thrown when his horse reared and plunged abruptly aside, with a high scream of anger and fear. He came down on his feet, but, for the first time in his life, as it was likely to be the last, he ran from a single foe. He had not seen the face of the man who rose under his horse's head, but he saw that he had a bandaged arm.

        He paused after a time, having found courage to look back, and seeing that he was unpursued. His heart beat hard from haste and fear, and he had a sense of shame for what he had done which inclined him to the belief, in his own defence, that he had been the object of superhuman arrest.

        Yet he went some paces back, with a drawn scimitar in his hand, for even the jinns (he thought) should be met by those who are bold, in the Prophet's name; and what was this but the spirit of one whom in life he slew?

        But what use, he thought again, could there be in returning now? If the horse were free, it would follow. There was no question of that. But the road was silent and bare. If it had been seized by a mortal man, he would have ridden away. The bravest of human race cannot be required to vanquish unearthly powers. He thanked Allah that none had seen his ignominious flight.

        He walked on to his tent, giving no explanation of why he had come or. his own feet. He asked at once if Angelica had been found, and was not surprised at the answer he got. He said: "I will see that other again."

        An hour later, Venetia, wary and alert