“I see that you wear gilded spurs, Sir Ralph,” another lady said; “you must therefore be a dubbed knight?”

“Yes; I had the good fortune to be knighted by D’Aubusson himself, at the same time that Sir Gervaise was also so honoured.  It was for an affair with the Turkish pirates.  It was Gervaise who really won the honour, for I had no share in the affair, save that of doing my best in the fight.”

“And who could do more?” the countess queried.

“Gervaise could do more, Countess, as was shown in that attack on the corsairs by means of fire ships.  He has a head to plan, and, in the case I speak of, a happy thought of his not only saved the lives of ourselves and Sir John Boswell, but, indirectly, was the means of preventing two of our galleys being captured by the corsairs.”

“Which is Sir Gervaise?” one of the ladies asked.

Ralph smiled.

“Look round the hall, signoras, and see if any of you can pick him out from the rest of us.”

The ladies looked round the hall.

“There are only about twenty here; the rest are in the other rooms.  Do not set us to work guessing, if he is not in sight, Sir Ralph.”

“Oh yes, he is in sight.  Now do each of you fix on the one you think most accords with your ideas of what a knight, brave in action and wise and prudent in council, would be like.”

The six ladies each fixed on one of the young knights.

“You are all wrong,” said Ralph.

“How can we choose?” the countess said laughingly, “when none of them resemble our ideal hero?  Most of them are pleasant and courtly looking youths, but as yet there is scarce a vestige of hair on their faces, and one could not fancy any of them as the destroyer of the fleet of corsairs.”

“Do you see the one speaking to the elderly lady in the recess?”

“Yes; she is the wife of Fragoso.  You do not mean to say that that lad is the commander of the galley?  Why, he looks the youngest of you all.”

“He is between seventeen and eighteen, and there are several others who are no older.  Yes, that is Sir Gervaise, Knight Commander of the Order of St. John.”

“But how can he possibly have served his time as a professed knight?”

“He was one of the grand master’s pages, and his time in that service counted just as it would have done had he entered as a professed knight; and at fifteen, therefore, he stood in the same position as those three or four years older than himself.  He speaks Turkish as well as our own tongue, and, as I told you, we received the accolade at the hands of the grand master, a year and a half ago.  He is now a knight commander, and will assuredly one day occupy one of the highest posts in the Order.”

“You do not speak as if you were jealous, Sir Ralph; and yet methinks it cannot be pleasant for you all to have one younger than yourselves placed at your head.”