Page 150 - A Knight of the White Cross

"I am to take you up to the English auberge. The knight who handed you
over to me when you landed, told me that you might be wanted as a

servitor; and as it is he who has sent down, it may be that a vacancy has
occurred. If so, you are in luck, for the servitors have a vastly better time of

it than the galley slaves, and the English auberge has the best reputation in
that respect. Come along with me."

The English auberge was one of the most handsome of the buildings
standing in the great street of the Knights. Its architecture was Gothic in its

character, and, although the langue was one of the smallest of those
represented at Rhodes, it vied with any of them in the splendour of its
appointments. Sir John Boswell was standing in the interior courtyard.

"Wait here for a few minutes," he said to the overseer. "The bailiff will

himself question the slave as to his accomplishments; but I fancy he will
not be considered of sufficient age for the post that is vacant. However, if
this should not be so, I shall no doubt find a post to fit him ere long, for he

seems a smart young fellow, and, what is better, a willing one, and bears
himself well under his misfortunes."

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

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

undertaken?"

"As to the penance, Sir John, it has been nothing unsupportable. The

exercise is hard enough, but none too hard for one in good health and
strength, and, save for the filth of the chamber in which we are shut up at

night, and the foul state of the rushes on which we lie, I should have naught
to complain of. No, I have as yet heard nothing of a surety -- and yet
enough to show me that my suspicions were justified, and that there is a

plot of some sort on foot," and he related to the two knights the
conversation he had had with the galley slave.