"My good friends and fellow-soldiers of the Cross, my dear child," replied the old Count. "With a noble train of such as these, now more than twenty years ago, I left my home to fight, in company with other lords of this and distant lands, for the deliverance of Christ's sepulchre. We were bound by a vow to give our banners to the wind upon the shores of Syria or Africa before a certain day; but in the fair city of Venice, the starlight daughter of the blue Adriatic, of which the heathen Venus was but an imperfect type, I met with one who made me long to break my oath--" and he laid his hand upon his wife's. "When she became a soldier's bride, however, she felt for a soldier's renown, and sadly, yet unmurmuringly, parted from me, that I might fulfil the promise I had made. I went, dear child, leaving some faithful friends and followers to guard her hither, after our first child's birth; and then comes a time, on the events of which I will not dwell. You have already heard too much, perchance. Suffice it that I was wronged, and that the wrong has been forgiven. When I was captured by the Saracens, some of my brave companions fell, some were taken with me, some escaped to a castle of the Knights Hospitallers on the African shore. There I had left a certain sum of treasure; but my sword had plagued the infidels too sorely for them to let me go, without enormous ransom. The Order of St. John and my comrades who had escaped, trafficked eagerly with my captors to liberate me; but it was in vain; and in those distant lands some years were consumed in these fruitless endeavours. While they went on, I was permitted to see several of my friends; and a plan struck me, for using their services to gain the freedom of my companions in misfortune. At my desire, they bound themselves to serve the Order of St. John in arms, a certain number of years, upon condition that at the end of each man's time the Order should redeem from slavery one of their comrades of equal rank, they still retaining their homage to me. Thus, in the course of the last four or five years, all of my train who survived had been set free, the one part from the bondage of the infidel, the other from their engagements to the Order; and as each man thus obtained liberty, I sent him back hither with a sum of money, to watch over and guard my child; for I knew that he still lived, although I had wept for his mother as in the grave. To each I furnished a knowledge of the secrets of this place,--for it has secrets, as you will soon hear,--and bade them address themselves either to my reverend friend, Father Francis, or to my old henchman, good Franz Creussen, for farther information and directions. My own liberation seemed hopeless; not a ray of light broke in upon the darkness of my fate; till some good soul in England, where there are kind hearts and wealthy men, left a large sum to the Knights of St. John, for the purpose of ransoming the prisoners of the Cross. Still, the sum demanded for me