Page 305 - A Knight of the White Cross

throughout the city and port. The vessels would all be examined, and the
boatmen questioned as to whether any craft was missing. Not until the

search proved absolutely fruitless would it be seriously suspected that he
had, either by passing through the gates in disguise, or by scaling the walls,

made for the interior. None knew that he could speak Arabic, and it would
be so hopeless an undertaking for any one unacquainted with the language
to traverse the country without being detected, that the Moors would be

slow to believe that he had embarked upon such adventure. However, when
all search for him in the town and in the vessels in the port proved fruitless,

doubtless mounted men would be despatched in all directions; some would
take the coast roads, while others would ride into the interior to warn the
head men of the villages to be on the lookout for an escaped slave.

After a sleep of five hours, Gervaise pursued his journey. He had walked

for eight hours, and calculated that he must be fully thirty miles from
Tripoli, and that not until evening would searchers overtake him. After
walking four miles he came to a large village. There he purchased a bag of

dates, sat down on a stone bench by the roadside to eat them, and entered
into conversation with two or three Moors who sauntered up. To these he

represented that he belonged to a party of his tribe who had encamped for
the day at a short distance from the village in order to rest their horses
before riding into Tripoli, whither they were proceeding to exchange skins

of animals taken in the chase, and some young horses, for cotton clothes,
knives, and other articles of barter with the tribes beyond them.

After quenching his thirst at a well in front of the mosque, he retraced his
steps until beyond the village, then struck out into the country, made a

detour, came down into the road again, and continued his journey eastward.
He walked until nightfall, and then again lay down.

He was now fully fifty miles from Tripoli, and hoped that he was beyond
the point to which horsemen from that town would think of pursuing their

search. It was likely that they would not have gone beyond the village at
which he had halted on the previous day; for when they learned from the

inhabitants that no stranger, save an Arab, had entered it, they would
content themselves with warning the head man to be on the watch for any