"Because," said they, "the stakes are not equal. For neither gold nor silver can be set against your person and the persons of your wife and children who are here; therefore we advise you not to put yourself or them in danger." Then the king said, "Lords, I have heard your opinion and that of my people, and now I will tell you mine, which is this: If I leave the ship there are in her five hundred people and more who will land in this Isle of Cyprus, for fear of peril to their body--since there is none that does not love his life as much as I love mine--and these, peradventure, will never return to their own land. Therefore I like better to place my own person, and my wife, and my children in God's hands than do this harm to the many people who are here." Their next adventure might have been more serious, at least for some of the crew. Sailing away in comparative safety in the damaged ship they came at length to the island of the sea called Pentelema, which was peopled by Saracens who were subjects of the King of Sicily and the King of Tunis. "The queen begged the king to send thither three galleys to get fruit for the children; and the king consented, and ordered the masters of the galleys to go thither, and be ready to come back to him when his ship passed before the island. The galleys entered into a little port that was on the island; and it chanced that when the king's ship passed before the port, we got no tidings of the galleys. "Then did the mariners begin to murmur among themselves. {248} "The king caused them to be summoned, and asked them what they thought of the matter. The mariners said it seemed to them that the Saracens had captured his people and his galleys. "'But we advise and counsel you, sire, not to wait for them; for you are between the kingdom of Sicily and the kingdom of Tunis, which love you not at all. If, however, you suffer us to sail forward, we shall, during the night, have delivered you from peril, for we shall have passed through the strait.' "'Truly,' said the king, 'I shall not listen to you, and leave my people in the hands of the Saracens without at least, doing all in my power to deliver them. I command you to turn your sails and we will fall upon them.' "And when the queen heard this, she began to make great lamentation and said, 'Alas! this is all my doing!' "While they were turning the sails of the king's ship and of the other ships, we saw the galleys coming from the island. When they came to the king, the king asked the mariners why they had tarried; and they replied that they could not help themselves, but that the fault lay with certain sons of burgesses of Paris, of whom there were six, who stayed eating the fruit of the gardens, wherefore they had been unable to get them off, nor could they leave them behind.