"One thing more." He lowered his voice. "Trust not this man Mocenigo. He hath an evil manner." "He is my father's friend, it seems," she replied. "Friend or not, he----" "Trust him I must, Hugh," she rebuked. "He bears my father's warrant as well as that of his Emperor. A great man he must be." "A great man, indeed!" scoffed Hugh. "An Italian swaggerer, some cut-throat expelled his own country!" "If you do not like him, I am sorry," answered Edith, with dignity. "But I must travel with him, and I intend that he shall be quick to serve me." Hugh gnashed his teeth. "I believe you," he snapped. He turned on his heel and strode down the corridor. He had gone but half-a-dozen steps, when there came a rush of feet behind him and two arms encircled his neck. "Great silly!" whispered a voice in his ear. "An you are my knight, what matters any one else?" He felt something brush his cheek, then was pushed violently from behind. When he regained his balance the corridor was empty, but his ears caught an echo of elfin laughter that floated down the corkscrew stairs. Probably he would have pursued the laughter up the staircase, but at that moment appeared Dame Alicia, a buxom creature who had nursed Edith from babyhood. She was wiping her eyes and occasionally emitted a rasping sob. "Take heart, good dame," said Hugh, smiling involuntarily at her lugubrious air. "'Tis not every one goes travelling through the world the guest of the Emperor of Constantinople." "Oh, Messer Hugh, Messer Hugh!" she wailed. "And if we ever come to Constantinople, it will not be so bad--although how am I to talk with the strangers in the land for want of knowing their tongue? But I doubt sorely we will get there, sailing all those leagues in the Great Ocean, where they say if the mariners be not careful they are like to slide off the edge of the world. And if we do not fall over the edge, then there will be the Moors and the black men that eat people and the Saracens and the pirates and the strange animals that come out of the deep to devour whole ships that pass by! Well-away and alas! Sorrow on the day that brought me to this!" She stumbled up the stairs after Edith, utterly unconsolable. Hugh felt no disposition to laugh at the woman's fears. He did not think that she exaggerated the perils of the voyage. But he was convinced that a vessel equipped by so mighty a sovereign as the Emperor of Constantinople must be reckoned able to beat off all except the most determined attacks and capable of withstanding the ordinary perils of the sea.