Half the seamen were gone; so was the captain; so was all of the cargo. Gervase Gaillard had been injured by a falling mast and was helpless. The coast was strange to them all, but the old merchant and Edrupt made a guess that it was a part of Morocco somewhere near the town of Fez. Food they had none; water they might find; and the merchants had not lost quite all they had in the wreck. Some gold and jewels they had saved, secured about their persons. These would pay the passage of the company to London—if they had luck.
They were considering what to do next when a body of some twoscore horsemen swept down upon them. The leader might have been either Turk or Frank. He was as dark as a Saracen and wore the chain-mail, scimitar and light helmet of the heathen, but he spoke Levantine rather too well for a Moor, and with a different intonation.
“Who are you?” he asked curtly. Nicholas Gay stood up, not yet quite steady on his feet.
“We are London merchant folk,” he said, “from the wrecked ship Sainte Spirite, whereof my father, Gilbert Gay, was owner. My uncle here is our chief man, but as you see, he is injured and cannot move. If we may get food and lodging until we are able to return to England, we will requite it freely.”
“London,” repeated the soldier. “A parcel of London traders, eh?” He spoke a few words to the Moor who rode next him, in another language. “This is the domain of Yusuf of the Almohades,” he went on, “and we make no terms with the enemies of God. Yet we condemn no man to starve. Ye shall have food and lodging so long as ye remain with us. Doubtless ye are honest and will pay, but in this barbarous land there are many thieves. Therefore we will take charge of such wealth as ye have. As for that old man, he cannot live to reach his home. Abu Hassan!”
A trooper spurred toward the old merchant and thrust him through with his lance. He half rose, groaned and fell back, dead. Others, dismounting, seized upon the astonished and indignant castaways, and took from them with the deftness of practiced hands whatever they had of value. This was too much for the Breton and English sailors. They would have fought it out then and there. But Nicholas spoke quickly so that only those nearest him heard.
“There is no gain in being killed here one by one. Wait and be silent. Pass the word to the rest.”
When the prisoners had been herded into a compact company in the center of the mounted troop, the leader chirruped to his horse. “It grows late,” he said. “Y'Allah!” And at the point of the lance the captives were driven forward.
They were taken through the crowded narrow streets of a squalid town and left in a walled enclosure where two negroes brought them an earthen jar of water and some sort of cooked grain in a large bowl. The sun blazed down upon their shelterless heads and flies hummed about the filth in the unclean place. Nicholas, when their hunger had been partly satisfied and there was no more to eat or drink, addressed himself to the others in a cool and quiet voice.
“Friends, it is like we are to be sold into slavery among the infidels. If each man is left to shift for himself they may break us. If we stand by one another and keep our faith we may yet win home to England. They may not separate us at first, and I have been thinking that if they find out the value of a company of men freely choosing to work together in harmony, they will hardly separate us at all. But we must obey their will, we must keep order among ourselves, and above all, we must seem to have given up all hope of escape. What say you?”