“Oh, yes, Sir Knight, I can inform you about it if you wish to know. Come here! Look! there are its walls with towers overtopping them. You can recognize them though it is not yet day. The Sultan is staying there now.”
“Alone?”
“No, oh, no! The garrison is not strong, but the castle is by no means empty. I will tell you, but in confidence, that the Sultan keeps two boy-prisoners there who are very dear to the Emperor.”
“Have you seen them?” said the Emperor, with much excitement.
“Not yet; but I heard of them when I was there selling fish.”
“Ah!” said the Emperor, with an air of indifference, not wishing to betray himself, for he observed that the fisherman was watching him curiously. “Does the Sultan keep no guards about him because he has no fear that the Emperor will attack him?”
“Oh, sir, he is safe against all the armies in the world! I ought not to reveal this to you, for the Sultan is my master; but believe me, I have so much respect for your Emperor that I am willing to do him or one of his knights a service. The castle is strongly protected. It cannot be taken from the land side, and seawards it is skirted by an inclosure filled with savage beasts. Oh, sir! I have now and then seen those cruel animals from a distance, and been terribly frightened by their dreadful roars. When I have seen them spring upon one another in mighty leaps, though they were only in sport, it has scared me so that I have seized my oars and rowed far from the spot.”
“You timorous hare! Do you suppose a German knight fears to go among those beasts?”
The fisherman stared at the knight in astonishment. “For God’s sake, Sir Knight, do not think of going there. No prisoner who has tried to escape that way has ever come out alive. They could hardly find his bones in the morning, and sometimes only a few blood spots told the story of his awful death.”
“But how can a prisoner get in there?”