mind. And a beam
as of sunshine overspread his countenance, and while he shook my hand
in silence I could see that he hardly refrained himself from betraying
more. After this, I came to know from his good mother that this offer of
moneys had cost him a great pang, but only for this cause: that he had
loved me from his youth up, and his noble soul forbid him to pay court
to me when he had in truth done me so great a service.

Still, and in despite of these gleams of light, I must ever remember
those three weeks as a full gloomy and sorrowful time.

Kubbeling's eldest son and his churlish helpmate had fared forth to
Venice instead of himself. They might not sail for the land of Egypt,
and this chafed Uhlwurm sorely, by reason that he was sure in himself
that he, far better than his master or than any man on earth, could do
good service there to Ann, on whom his soul was set more than on any
other of us.

Towards the end of the third week we rode forth to spend a few days
again at the lodge, and there we found Young Kubbeling well nigh healed
of his fever, and Eppelein's tongue ready to wag and to tell us of his
many adventures without overmuch asking. Howbeit, save what concerned
his own mishaps, he had little to say that we knew not already.

The Saracen pirate who had boarded the galleon from Genoa which was
carrying him and his lord to Cyprus, had parted him from Herdegen and
Sir Franz, and sold him for a slave in Egypt. There had he gone through
many fortunes, till at last, in Alexandria, he had one day met Akusch.
At that time my faithful squire's father was yet in good estate, and he
forthwith bought Eppelein, who was then a chattel of the overseer of the
market, to the end that the fellow might help his son in the search for
Herdegen. This search they had diligently pursued, and had discovered my
brother and Sir Franz together in the armory of the Sultan's Palace, in
the fort over against Cairo, whither they had come after they had both
worked at the oars in great misery for two years, on board a Saracen
galley.

But then Herdegen had made proof, in some jousting among the young
Mamelukes, of how well skilled he was with the sword, and thereby he had
won such favor that they were fain to deliver sundry letters which
he wrote to us, into the care of the Venice consul. Whereas he had no
answer he had set it down to our lack of diligence at home, till at last
he was put on the right track by Akusch, and it was pl