[010]
On this footing the affair remained somewhat longer than was
expedient; and so, while Gerbino and the lady burned with mutual
love, it befell that the King of Tunis gave her in marriage to the
King of Granada; whereat she was wroth beyond measure, for that
she was not only going into a country remote from her lover, but, as
she deemed, was severed from him altogether; and so this might not
come to pass, gladly, could she but have seen how, would she have
left her father and fled to Gerbino.
[011]
In like manner, Gerbino, on
learning of the marriage, was vexed beyond measure, and was ofttimes
minded, could he but find means to win to her husband by
sea, to wrest her from him by force.
[012]
Some rumour of Gerbino's love,
and of his intent, reached the King of Tunis, who, knowing his
prowess and power, took alarm, and as the time drew nigh for
conveying the lady to Granada, sent word of his purpose to King
Guglielmo, and craved his assurance that it might be carried into
effect without let or hindrance on the part of Gerbino, or any one
else.
[013]
The old King had heard nothing of Gerbino's love affair, and
never dreaming that 'twas on such account that the assurance was
craved, granted it without demur, and in pledge thereof sent the
King of Tunis his glove. Which received, the King made ready
a great and goodly ship in the port of Carthage, and equipped
her with all things meet for those that were to man her, and
with all appointments apt and seemly for the reception of his
daughter, and awaited only fair weather to send her therein to
Granada.
[014]
All which the young lady seeing and marking, sent
one of her servants privily to Palermo, bidding him greet the
illustrious Gerbino on her part, and tell him that a few days
would see her on her way to Granada; wherefore 'twould now appear
whether, or no, he were really as doughty a man as he was reputed,
and loved her as much as he had so often protested.
[015]The servant
did not fail to deliver her message exactly, and returned to Tunis,
leaving Gerbino, who knew that his grandfather, King Guglielmo,
had given the King of Tunis the desired assurance, at a loss how to
act. But prompted by love, and goaded by the lady's words and
loath to seem a craven, he hied him to Messina; and having there
armed two light galleys, and manned them with good men and true,
he put to sea, and stood for Sardinia, deeming that the lady's ship must
pass that way.
[016]
Nor was he far out in his reckoning; for he had
not been there many days, when the ship, sped by a light breeze, hove
in sight not far from the place where he lay in wait for her. Whereupon
Gerbino said to his comrades: "Gentlemen, if you be as good
men and true as I deem you, there is none of you but must have felt, if
he feel not now, the might of love; for without love I deem no
mortal capable of true worth or aught that is good; and if you are
or have been in love, 'twill be easy for you to understand that which
I desire.
[017]
I love, and 'tis because I love that I have laid this travail
upon you; and that which I love is in the ship that you see before
you, which is fraught not only with my beloved, but with immense
treasures, which, if you are good men and true, we, so we but play
the man in fight, may with little trouble make our own; nor for
my share of the spoils of the victory demand I aught but a lady,
whose love it is that prompts me to take arms: all else I freely cede
to you from this very hour. Forward, then; attack we this ship;
success should be ours, for God favours our enterprise, nor lends her
wind to evade us."
[018]
Fewer words might have sufficed the illustrious
Gerbino; for the rapacious Messinese that were with him were
already bent heart and soul upon that to which by his harangue he
sought to animate them. So, when he had done, they raised a
mighty shout, so that 'twas as if trumpets did blare, and caught up
their arms, and smiting the water with their oars, overhauled the
ship.
[019]
The advancing galleys were observed while they were yet a
great way off by the ship's crew, who, not being able to avoid the
combat, put themselves in a posture of defence. Arrived at close
quarters, the illustrious Gerbino bade send the ship's masters aboard
the galleys, unless they were minded to do battle.
[020]
Certified of the
challenge, and who they were that made it, the Saracens answered
that 'twas in breach of the faith plighted to them by their assailants'
king that they were thus attacked, and in token thereof displayed
King Guglielmo's glove, averring in set terms that there should be
no surrender either of themselves or of aught that was aboard the
ship without battle.
[021]
Gerbino, who had observed the lady standing
on the ship's poop, and seen that she was far more beautiful than he
had imagined, burned with a yet fiercer flame than before, and to
the display of the glove made answer, that, as he had no falcons there
just then, the glove booted him not; wherefore, so they were not
minded to surrender the lady, let them prepare to receive battle.
[022]
Whereupon, without further delay, the battle began on both sides
with a furious discharge of arrows and stones; on which wise it was
long protracted to their common loss;
[023]
until at last Gerbino, seeing
that he gained little advantage, took a light bark which they had
brought from Sardinia, and having fired her, bore down with her,
and both the galleys, upon the ship. Whereupon the Saracens,
seeing that they must perforce surrender the ship or die, caused the
King's daughter, who lay beneath the deck weeping, to come up on
deck, and led her to the prow, and shouting to Gerbino, while the
lady shrieked alternately "mercy" and "succour," opened her veins
before his eyes, and cast her into the sea, saying: "Take her; we
give her to thee on such wise as we can, and as thy faith has merited."
[024]
Maddened to witness this deed of barbarism, Gerbino, as if courting
death, recked no more of the arrows and the stones, but drew alongside
the ship, and, despite the resistance of her crew, boarded her;
and as a famished lion ravens amongst a herd of oxen, and tearing
and rending, now one, now another, gluts his wrath before he appeases
his hunger, so Gerbino, sword in hand, hacking and hewing on all
sides among the Saracens, did ruthlessly slaughter not a few of them;
till, as the burning ship began to blaze more fiercely, he bade the
seamen take thereout all that they might by way of guerdon, which
done, he quitted her, having gained but a rueful victory over his
adversaries.
[025]
His next care was to recover from the sea the body of
the fair lady, whom long and with many a tear he mourned: and
so he returned to Sicily, and gave the body honourable sepulture in
Ustica, an islet that faces, as it were, Trapani, and went home the
saddest man alive.
