Even as I spoke, I saw that the galleys were pulling away with all their oars, skirting the rocks narrowly and speeding around to the point from which the earth-mended wall had once been stormed.
"Rally! Rally!" I shouted, and led the rush across to the rampart of earthbags and log.
It was as I had been inspired to guess. The sea was full of boats again, scores of them, rowing swiftly forward to the attack. A spatter of shafts and shot made the few of us who were left put our heads down.
"What is to be done?" demanded a wide-eyed brother with a smear of gore on his chin. "See, their whole force comes to this side, more than the first time! Their rush will beat us back, and our comrades outside, returning from the chain, will not arrive in time to hold the castle!"
"Stand to the rampart, hurl down their ladders!" stoutly shouted an armed captive.
As he leaned forward to suit action to word a crossbow bolt whacked into him, and he crumpled across the log, dead. The rest of us crouched low, swords in hand, determining to die hard.
I found myself kneeling beside one of the lashed cross-pieces that propped the great log which was our temporary coping. It was none too firm, that cross-piece, I judged. And again I was inspired.
"Hark ye, all!" I cried at the top of my voice. "We can save ourselves! Form in parties by these cross-pieces! Clutch them in your arms! If we bear with all our strength at once, it will force the great log forward and outward!"
"To what good?" demanded another.
"To overthrow the ladders, as we cannot with such a fire against us. Do not argue, friends, but do as I say!"
There was no time or hope otherwise. In a trice we formed in half a dozen knots, all crouching or kneeling, our weapons flung down and our arms wrapped around the cross-timbers.
Whoops and execrations rang from beneath us, where the ladders were being reared from the boat bottoms to give access to our fortress. I felt my heart race like a drum-roll, but kept my eyes steadily on the parapet, where the spiky ends of the ladders showed.
"Allahuakbar!" thundered the enemy, and again a row of heads shot up into view.
"Now!" I shouted my loudest, and taxed all my muscles to drag forward on the cross-piece I clutched.
There was a concerted grunt from every defender as we bore mightily against the log. And, as I had dared hope, so it was. The mass of timber slid gratingly forward, as a drawer slides from a bureau. With it swayed the storming ladders, so precariously balanced, and toppled. A single concerted shriek assailed heaven from the many throats of those who were suddenly hurled back, down, among the boats and into the surf.
Dragging back our timber defense, we cheered each other in wild and thankful joy.
That unexpected reverse gave the Moslems pause—a blessed, blessed pause, enough for the return and remarshaling of the swimming sortie led by Father Augustino. He clapped my shoulder with a hard hand.
"You have saved this holy place," he told me, "and if it were in my power to free you—"
He turned away to thunder new orders. I stood alone for the moment, then a hand clutched my sleeve. I turned, to see the bearded man whose name I did not know but who knew me; the man whose boat was in the little harbor below.
"Come," he said softly. "If he cannot give you liberty, I can."
"How?" I demanded, hope pounding in my breast.
He did not pause to reply, but drew me with him to the stairs and down. We went unchallenged through the lower part of the castle, and came to the gate. He unfastened it, and we stepped outside.
"See," he bade me. "The Turkish boats have all gone around to the other side, hoping to make good that assault which you foiled. Now is my time to flee. I have too fast a ship for them to catch, and I will take you along."
I was too amazed and thankful to speak. A moment later we had hurried down, sprung aboard his half-decked sailing vessel, and were headed out for that quarter of the sea just now unguarded by either Holy Pilgrim or infidel Turk—the sea beyond which lay the Italy from which I had been carried captive six years before.
CHAPTER XVIII Return to Florence
Just as soon as my feet were on deck, my enigmatic friend hustled me into the cabin, where he left me alone. I heard his shouted orders on deck, felt the ship move. We sailed out, unchallenged and unchecked, and headed northwest. I heard the muffled noise of a fresh attack on the fortress, but we were not pursued.
After some time, the master of the vessel appeared. He offered me a razor, with which I thankfully took my first decent shave. A mirror showed me my face smooth again, but no longer fresh and boyish. My brow was cleft with a frown mark, my nose and chin had hardened, and my eyes blazed as with challenge and truculence. Over one temple rose a purple bump, where the Turkish slinger had struck me. Not a pretty face.
My rescuer was offering me new clothes. I pulled on dark green hose, a velvet doublet, and then looked in surprise at the cloak he offered—a cloak of Florentine scarlet.
"Why it—it is mine!" I cried. "I wore it before. It was given me by—"
"By Guaracco," he supplied. "Yes. From him I took it."
"But Guaracco caused my imprisonment," I protested.
"He now causes your release," was the answer. "He knew, through spies, that the Turks would attack. He arranged that I come to the fortress in good time for that event, with instructions to help you escape. It took but a word to draw you out of cell and into the ranks of the defenders. After that— But you will know all anon. Stay in this cabin, for it would be ill for any sailor to see you and gabble in port."
I stayed, perforce, all that day and for some days following. We talked no more about my strange rescue, and I could learn nothing at all of the reason for it. At last, on the morning of April 25th, we docked. Peeping through a porthole, I watched the mariners tie us up to the pilings.
I raked the shore with my eyes, on the lookout for Guaracco. I wondered what I would find to say to him.
In the midst of this, my companion entered.
"Here is a fellow-passenger of yours, whom I at last show you," he said.
With him was a slender figure, cloaked and masked, as at a carnival. Saying nothing, this figure handed me a folded and sealed parchment. On the outside was the address, written in fashion of the time:
Wondering, I broke the seals and read:
My dear cousin and partner:
Do not think me neglectful if I have left you, like a dagger in a sheath, until the time was ripe to use you. For the ill you have known at my hands, I now make full amends. I have prospered in Florence, and power shall be mine and yours. Come and aid me, as I shall aid you.
I looked up again, with an exclamation. The figure had unmasked and dropped the cloak. It was Lisa. Her deep, dark eyes looked into mine.
"I have come to take you back to Florence," she said mechanically.
I stared at her, and my eyes must have been like those of a frog.
"What is the matter, Lisa?" I asked.
Because something was the matter. She seemed to move and talk in a dream.
"I have come to take you back to Florence," she said again.
Guaracco had done it—put his spell upon her, and sent her here. Nay, he had sent her all the way to that perilous fortress to assure my own obedience to his call. I gazed at the letter, crumpled it in my hand. It was baleful, foreshadowing tricks and traps.
"Will you come?" Lisa was asking me.
She spoke in the measured tone she might have used when purchasing meat from a butcher. Her eyes were upon me, drawing my gaze to them, but they only half knew me.