But it is not so with pirates.

They will plunder their own countrymen as readily as they will Christians, and the safe guard of the governor of Syria will be of no use whatever to you.

In this consists the danger of your mission.

I cannot send one of our war galleys on such an errand, and if there are not enough knights on board to beat off any pirate, the fewer there are the better.

I hear that the craft is a fast sailor, and as the crew will be as anxious to avoid pirates as you, they will do their best to escape.