Gervaise knew nothing at the time of the final result of the battle, for
as soon as the knights had burst through the circle of his opponents,
he sank insensible on the body of the grand master. When he came to
himself, he was lying on a bed in the hospital of the Order. As soon
as he moved, Ralph Harcourt, who was, with other knights, occupied
in tending the wounded, came to his bedside. “Thank God that you are
conscious again, Gervaise! They told me that it was but faintness and
loss of blood, and that none of your wounds were likely to prove mortal,
and for the last twelve hours they have declared that you were asleep:
but you looked so white that I could not but fear you would never wake
again.”
“How is the grand master?” Gervaise asked eagerly. Ralph shook his head.
“He is wounded sorely, Gervaise, and the leech declares that one at
least of his wounds is mortal; still, I cannot bring myself to believe
that so great a hero will be taken away in the moment of victory, after
having done such marvels for the cause not only of the Order, but of all
Christendom.”
“Then you beat them back again from the breach?” Gervaise said.
“That was not all. They were in such confusion that we sallied out,
captured their camp, with the pasha's banner and an enormous quantity of
spoil, and pursued them to their harbour. Then we halted, fearing that
they might in their desperation turn upon us, and, terribly weakened as
we were by our losses, have again snatched the victory from our grasp.
So we let them go on board their ships without interference, and this
morning there is not a Turkish sail in sight. The inhabitants are well
nigh mad with joy. But elated as we are at our success, our gladness is
sorely damped by the state of the grand master, and the loss of so many
of our comrades, though, indeed, our langue has suffered less than any
of the others, for the brunt of the attacks on St. Nicholas and the
breach did not fall upon us, still we lost heavily when at last we
hurried up to win back the wall from them.”
“Who have fallen?” Gervaise asked.
“Among the principal knights are Thomas Ben, Henry Haler, Thomas
Ploniton, John Vaquelin, Adam Tedbond, Henry Batasbi, and Henry Anlui.
Marmaduke Lumley is dangerously wounded. Of the younger knights, some
fifteen have been killed, and among them your old enemy Rivers. He died
a coward's death, the only one, thank God, of all our langue. When
the fray was thickest Sir John Boswell marked him crouching behind the
parapet. He seized him by the gorget, and hauled him out, but his knees
shook so that he could scarcely walk, and would have slunk back when
released. Sir John raised his mace to slay him as a disgrace to the
Order and our langue, when a ball from one of the Turkish cannon cut him
well nigh in half, so that he fell by the hands of the Turks, and not by
the sword of one of the Order he had disgraced. Fortunately none, save
half a dozen knights of our langue, saw the affair, and you may be sure
we shall say nothing about it; and instead of Rivers' name going down to
infamy, it will appear in the list of those who died in the defence of
Rhodes.”
“May God assoil his soul!” Gervaise said earnestly. “'Tis strange that
one of gentle blood should have proved a coward. Had he remained at
home, and turned courtier, instead of entering the Order, he might have
died honoured, without any one ever coming to doubt his courage.”
“He would have turned out bad whatever he was,” Ralph said
contemptuously; “for my part, I never saw a single good quality in him.”
Long before Gervaise was out of hospital, the glad tidings that
D'Aubusson would recover, in spite of the prognostications of the leech,
spread joy through the city, and at about the same time that Gervaise
left the hospital the grand master was able to sit up. Two or three days
afterwards he sent for Gervaise.
“I owe my life to you, Sir Gervaise,” he said, stretching out his thin,
white hand to him as he entered. “You stood by me nobly till I fell,
for, though unable to stand, I was not unconscious, and saw how
you stood above me and kept the swarming Moslems at bay. No knight
throughout the siege has rendered such great service as you have done.
Since I have been lying unable to move, I have thought of many things;
among them, that I had forgotten to give you the letters and presents
that came for you after you sailed away. They are in that cabinet;
please bring them to me. There,” he said, as Gervaise brought a bulky
parcel which the grand master opened, “this letter is from the Holy
Father himself. That, as you may see from the arms on the seal, is from
Florence. The others are from Pisa, Leghorn, and Naples. Rarely, Sir
Gervaise, has any potentate or knight earned the thanks of so many great
cities. These caskets accompanied them. Sit down and read your letters.
They must be copied in our records.”
Gervaise first opened the one from the Pope. It was written by his own
hand, and expressed his thanks as a temporal sovereign for the great
benefit to the commerce of his subjects by the destruction of the
corsair fleet, and as the head of the Christian Church for the blow
struck at the Moslems. The other three letters were alike in character,
expressing the gratitude of the cities for their deliverance from the
danger, and of their admiration for the action by which a fleet was
destroyed with a single galley. Along with the letter from Pisa was
a casket containing a heavy gold chain set with gems. Florence sent a
casket containing a document bestowing upon him the freedom of the city,
and an order upon the treasury for five thousand ducats that had been
voted to him by the grand council of the Republic; while Ferdinand, King
of Naples, bestowed on him the grand cross of the Order of St. Michael.
“The armour I had hung up in the armoury, where it has been carefully
kept clean. I guessed what it was by the weight of the case when it
came, and thought it best to open it, as it might have got spoilt by
rust. It is a timely gift, Sir Gervaise, for the siege has played havoc
with the suit Genoa gave you; it is sorely battered, dinted, and broken,
and, although you can doubtless get it repaired, if I were you I would
keep it in its present state as a memorial--and there could be no
prouder one--of the part you bore in the siege. I have seen Caretto
this morning. He sails for Genoa tomorrow, where he will, I hope, soon
recover his strength, for the wounds he received at St. Nicholas have
healed but slowly. He said”--and a momentary smile crossed the grand
master's face--“that he thought a change might benefit you also, for he
was sure that the air here had scarce recovered from the taint of
blood. Therefore, here is a paper granting you three months' leave. His
commandery is a pleasant one, and well situated on the slopes of the
hills; and the fresh air will, doubtless, speedily set you up. I should
like nothing better than a stay there myself, but there is much to do to
repair the damages caused by the siege, and to place the city in a state
of defence should the Turks again lay siege to it; and methinks Mahomet
will not sit down quietly under the heavy reverse his troops have met
with.”
“But I should be glad to stay here to assist in the work, your
Highness.”
“There are plenty of knights to see to that,” D'Aubusson replied, “and
it will be long before you are fit for such work. No, I give my orders
for you to proceed with Caretto to Genoa--unless, indeed, you would
prefer to go to some other locality to recruit your strength.”
“I would much rather go with Sir Fabricius, your Highness, than to any
place where I have no acquaintances. I have a great esteem and respect
for him.”
“He is worthy of it; there is no nobler knight in the Order, and, had
I fallen, none who could more confidently have been selected to fill
my place. He has an equally high opinion of you, and spoke long and
earnestly concerning you.”
A fortnight later the ship carrying the two knights arrived at Genoa.
“I will go ashore at once, Gervaise,” Caretto said. “I know not whether
my cousin is in the city or on her estate; if the former, I will stay
with her for a day or two before going off to my commandery, and of
course you will also be her guest. I hope she will be here, for methinks
we shall both need to refit our wardrobes before we are fit to appear in
society.”
“Certainly I shall,” Gervaise agreed; “for, indeed, I find that my gala
costume suffered a good deal during my long absence; and, moreover,
although I have not increased in height, I have broadened out a good
deal since I was here two years ago.”
“Yes; you were a youth then, Gervaise, and now you are a man, and one
of no ordinary strength and size. The sun of Tripoli, and your labours
during the siege, have added some years to your appearance. You are, I
think, little over twenty, but you look two or three years older. The
change is even greater in your manner than in your appearance; you were
then new to command, doubtful as to your own powers, and diffident with
those older than yourself. Now for two years you have thought and acted
for yourself, and have shown yourself capable of making a mark even
among men like the knights of St. John, both in valour and in fitness to
command. You saved St. Nicholas, you saved the life of the grand master;
and in the order of the day he issued on the morning we left, granting
you three months' leave for the recovery of your wounds, he took the
opportunity of recording, in the name of the council and himself, their
admiration for the services rendered by you during the siege, and his
own gratitude for saving his life when he lay helpless and surrounded by
the Moslems--a testimony of which any knight of Christendom might well
feel proud.”
It was three hours before Caretto returned to the ship.
“My cousin is at home, and will be delighted to see you. I am sorry that
I have kept you waiting so long, but at present Genoa, and, indeed,
all Europe, is agog at the news of the defeat of the Turks, and Italy
especially sees clearly enough that, had Rhodes fallen, she would have
been the next object of attack by Mahomet; therefore the ladies would
not hear of my leaving them until I had told them something at least of
the events of the siege, and also how it came about that you were there
to share in the defence. I see that you are ready to land; therefore,
let us be going at once. Most of the people will be taking their siesta
at present, and we shall get through the streets without being mobbed;
for I can assure you that the mantle of the Order is just at present
in such high favour that I had a hard task to wend my way through the
streets to my cousin's house.”
On arriving at the palace of the Countess of Forli, Gervaise was
surprised at the change that had taken place in the Lady Claudia. From
what Caretto had said, he was prepared to find that she had grown out of
her girlhood, and had altered much. She had, however, changed even more
than he had expected, and had become, he thought, the fairest woman that
he had ever seen. The countess greeted him with great cordiality; but
Claudia came forward with a timidity that contrasted strangely with
the outspoken frankness he remembered in the girl. For a time they all
chatted together of the events of the siege, and of his captivity.
“The news that you had been captured threw quite a gloom over us, Sir
Gervaise,” the countess said. “We at first consoled ourselves with the
thought that you would speedily be ransomed; but when months passed
by, and we heard that all the efforts of the grand master had failed to
discover where you had been taken, I should have lost all hope had it
not been that my cousin had returned after an even longer captivity
among the Moors. I am glad to hear that you did not suffer so many
hardships as he did.”
“I am in no way to be pitied, Countess,” Gervaise said lightly. “I had a
kind master for some months, and was treated as a friend rather than as
a slave; afterwards, I had the good fortune to be made the head of
the labourers at the buildings in the sultan's palace, and although I
certainly worked with them, the labour was not greater than one could
perform without distress, and I had naught to complain of as to my
condition.”
After talking for upwards of an hour, the countess told Caretto that she
had several matters on which she needed his counsel, and retired with
him to the next room of the suite opening from the apartment in which
they had been sitting. For a minute or two the others sat silent, and
then Claudia said,
“You have changed much since I saw you last, Sir Gervaise. Then it
seemed to me scarcely possible that you could have performed the feat of
destroying the corsair fleet; now it is not so difficult to understand.”
“I have widened out a bit, Lady Claudia. My moustache is really a
moustache, and not a pretence at one; otherwise I don't feel that I have
changed. The alteration in yourself is infinitely greater.”
“I, too, have filled out,” she said, with a smile. “I was a thin girl
then--all corners and angles. No, I don' t want any compliments, of
which, to tell you the truth, I am heartily sick. And so,” she went
on in a softer tone, “you have actually brought my gage home! Oh, Sir
Gervaise,”--and her eyes filled with tears--“my cousin has told me! How
could you have been so foolish as to remain voluntarily in captivity,
that you might recover the gage a child had given you?”
“Not a child, Lady Claudia. A girl not yet a woman, I admit; yet it
was not given in the spirit of a young girl, but in that of an earnest
woman. I had taken a vow never to part with it, as you had pledged
yourself to bestow no similar favour upon any other knight. I was
confident that you would keep your vow; and although in any case, as
a true knight, I was bound to preserve your gift, still more so was I
bound by the thought of the manner in which you had presented it to me.”
“But I could not have blamed you--I should never have dreamt of blaming
you,” she said earnestly, “for losing it as you did.”
“I felt sure, Lady Claudia, that had it been absolutely beyond my power
to regain it you would not have blamed me; but it was not beyond my
power, and that being so had I been obliged to wait for ten years,
instead of two, I would not have come back to you without it. Moreover,
you must remember that I prized it beyond all things. I had often
scoffed at knights of an order like ours wearing ladies' favours. I had
always thought it absurd that we, pledged as we are, should thus declare
ourselves admirers of one woman more than another. But this seemed to me
a gage of another kind; it was too sacred to be shown or spoken of, and
I only mentioned it to Caretto as he cross questioned me as to why I
refused the offer of ransom; and should not have done so then, had he
not been present when it was bestowed. I regarded it not as a lightly
given favour, the result of a passing fancy by one who gave favours
freely, but as a pledge of friendship and as a guerdon for what I had
done, and therefore, more to be honoured than the gifts of a Republic
freed from a passing danger. Had you then been what you are now, I might
have been foolish enough to think of it in another light, regardless of
the fact that you are a rich heiress of one of the noblest families in
Italy, and I a knight with no possessions save my sword.”
“Say not so, Sir Gervaise,” she said impetuously. “Are you not a knight
on whom Genoa and Florence have bestowed their citizenship, whom the
Holy Father himself has thanked, who has been honoured by Pisa, and
whom Ferdinand of Naples has created a Knight of the Grand Cross of St.
Michael, whom the grand master has singled out for praise among all the
valiant knights of the Order of St. John, who, as my cousin tells me,
saved him and the fort he commanded from capture, and who stood alone
over the fallen grand master, surrounded by a crowd of foes. How can you
speak of yourself as a simple knight?”
Then she stopped, and sat silent for a minute, while a flush of colour
mounted to her cheeks.
“Give me my gage again, Sir Gervaise,” she said gently. In silence
Gervaise removed it from his neck, wondering greatly what could be her
intention. She turned it over and over in her hand.
“Sir Knight,” she said, “this was of no great value in my eyes when I
bestowed it upon you; it was a gage, and not a gift. Now it is to me of
value beyond the richest gem on earth; it is a proof of the faith and
loyalty of the knight I most esteem and honour, and so in giving it to
you again, I part with it with a pang, for I have far greater reason to
prize it than you can have. I gave it you before as a girl, proud that
a knight who had gained such honour and applause should wear her favour,
and without the thought that the trinket was a heart. I give it to you
now as a woman, far prouder than before that you should wear her gage,
and not blind to the meaning of the emblem.”
Gervaise took her hand as she fastened it round his neck, and kissed
it; then, still holding it, he said, “Do you know what you are doing,
Claudia? You are raising hopes that I have never been presumptuous
enough to cherish.”
“I cannot help that,” she said softly. “There is assuredly no
presumption in the hope.”
He paused a moment.
“You would not esteem me,” he said, holding both her hands now, “were
I false to my vows. I will return to Rhodes tomorrow, and ask the grand
master to forward to the Pope and endorse my petition, that I may be
released from my vows to the Order. I cannot think that he or the Holy
Father will refuse my request. Then, when I am free, I can tell you how
I love and honour you, and how, as I have in the past devoted my life to
the Order, so I will in the future devote it to your happiness.”
The girl bowed her head.
“'Tis right it should be so,” she said. “I have waited, feeling in my
heart that the vow I had given would bind me for life, and I should be
content to wait years longer if needs be. But I am bound by no vows, and
can acknowledge that you have long been the lord of my life, and that
so long as you wore the heart I had given you, so long would I listen to
the wooing of no other.”
“I fear that the Countess, your mother--” Gervaise began, but she
interrupted him.
“You need not fear,” she said. “My mother has long known, and knowing
also that I am not given to change, has ceased to importune me to listen
to other offers. Her sole objection was that you might never return from
captivity. Now that you have come back with added honours, she will
not only offer no objection, but will, I am sure, receive you gladly,
especially as she knows that my cousin Sir Fabricius, for whom she has
the greatest affection, holds you in such high esteem.”
Six months later Gervaise again landed at Genoa, after having stayed
at Rome for a few days on his way back. D'Aubusson had expressed no
surprise at his return to Rhodes, or at the request he made.
“Caretto prepared me for this,” he said, smiling, “when he asked me if
you might accompany him to Genoa. The Order will be a loser, for you
would assuredly have risen to the grand priorage of your langue some
day. But we have no right to complain; you have done your duty and more,
and I doubt not that should Mahomet again lay siege to Rhodes, we may
count on your hastening here to aid us?”
“That assuredly you may, sir. Should danger threaten, my sword will be
as much at the service of the Order as if I were still a member of it.”
“I by no means disapprove,” D'Aubusson went on, “of knights leaving us
when they have performed their active service, for in civil life they
sometimes have it in their power to render better service to the
Order than if passing their lives in the quiet duties of a provincial
commandery. It will be so in your case: the lady is a great heiress,
and, as the possessor of wide lands, your influence in Northern Italy
may be very valuable to us, and in case of need you will, like my
brother De Monteuil, be able to bring a gathering of men-at-arms to our
aid. Have no fear that the Pope will refuse to you a release from your
vows. My recommendation alone would be sufficient; but as, moreover, he
is himself under an obligation to you, he will do so without hesitation.
Since you have been away, your friend Harcourt has been appointed a
commander of a galley, and Sir John Boswell, being incapacitated by
the grievous wounds he received during the siege, has accepted a rich
commandery in England, and sailed but two days since to take up his
charge. By the way, did you reply to those letters expressing your
thanks and explaining your long silence?”
“Yes, your Highness, I wrote the same evening you gave them to me.”
“That is right. The money voted you by Florence will be useful to you
now, and there is still a sum sent by your commandery owing to you by
the treasury. I will give you an order for it. However rich an heiress a
knight may win, 'tis pleasant for him to have money of his own; not that
you will need it greatly, for, among the presents you have received, the
jewels are valuable enough for a wedding gift to a princess.”
Gervaise was well received at Rome, and the Pope, after reading the
grand master's letter, and learning from him his reason for wishing
to leave the Order, without hesitation granted him absolution from his
vows. A few months later there was a grand wedding at the cathedral of
Genoa, the doge and all the nobles of the Republic being present.
Ralph Harcourt and nine other young knights had accompanied Gervaise
from Rhodes by the permission, and indeed at the suggestion, of the
grand master, who was anxious to show that Gervaise had his full
approval and countenance in leaving the Order. Caretto, who had been
appointed grand prior of Italy, had brought the knights from all the
commanderies in the northern republics to do honour to the occasion,
and the whole, in their rich armour and the mantles of the Order, made a
distinguishing feature in the scene.
The defeat of the Turks created such enthusiasm throughout Europe that
when the grand prior of England laid before the king letters he had
received from the grand master and Sir John Kendall, speaking in the
highest terms of the various great services Gervaise had rendered to the
Order, Edward granted his request that the act of attainder against Sir
Thomas Tresham and his descendants should be reversed and the estates
restored to Gervaise. The latter made, with his wife, occasional
journeys to England, staying a few months on his estates in Kent; and as
soon as his second son became old enough, he sent him to England to
be educated, and settled the estate upon him. He himself had but few
pleasant memories of England; he had spent indeed but a very short time
there before he entered the house of the Order in Clerkenwell, and that
time had been marked by constant anxiety, and concluded with the loss
of his father. The great estates that were now his in Italy demanded his
full attention, and, as one of the most powerful nobles of Genoa, he had
come to take a prominent part in the affairs of the Republic.
He was not called upon to fulfil his promise to aid in the defence of
Rhodes, for the death of Mahomet just at the time when he was preparing
a vast expedition against it, freed the Island for a long time from
fear of an invasion. From time to time they received visits from Ralph
Harcourt, who, after five years longer service at Rhodes, received a
commandery in England. He held it a few years only, and then returned to
the Island, where he obtained a high official appointment.
In 1489 Sir John Boswell became bailiff of the English langue, and Sir
Fabricius Caretto was in 1513 elected grand master of the Order, and
held the office eight years, dying in 1521.
When, in 1522, forty-two years after the first siege, Rhodes was again
beleaguered, Gervaise, who had, on the death of the countess, become
Count of Forli, raised a large body of men-at-arms, and sent them, under
the command of his eldest son, to take part in the defence. His third
son had, at the age of sixteen, entered the Order, and rose to high rank
in it.
The defence, though even more obstinate and desperate than the first,
was attended with less success, for after inflicting enormous losses
upon the great army, commanded by the Sultan Solyman himself, the town
was forced to yield; for although the Grand Master L'Isle Adam, and
most of his knights, would have preferred to bury themselves beneath
the ruins rather than yield, they were deterred from doing so, by the
knowledge that it would have entailed the massacre of the whole of
the inhabitants, who had throughout the siege fought valiantly in the
defence of the town. Solyman had suffered such enormous losses that he
was glad to grant favourable conditions, and the knights sailed away
from the city they had held so long and with such honour, and afterwards
established themselves in Malta, where they erected another stronghold,
which in the end proved an even more valuable bulwark to Christendom
than Rhodes had been. There were none who assisted more generously and
largely, by gifts of money, in the establishment of the Order at Malta
than Gervaise. His wife, while she lived, was as eager to aid in the
cause as he was himself, holding that it was to the Order she owed her
husband. And of all their wide possessions there were none so valued by
them both, as the little coral heart set in pearls that she, as a girl,
had given him, and he had so faithfully brought back to her.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's A Knight of the White Cross, by G.A. Henty