Whereupon I would look up at her, abashed and put to shame; for it is one
thing not to despair, and another to trust with steadfast confidence on a
happy outcome. She, in truth, could do this; and when I beheld her day
by day at her laborious tasks, bravely and cheerfully fulfilling the hard
and bitter exercises which her father-confessor enjoined, to the end that
she might win the favor of the Saints for her lover, I weened that the
Apostle spake the truth when he said that love hopeth all things and
believeth all things.

Notwithstanding it was not easy to her, nor to us, to hold fast our
confidence; now and again some trace of the lost man would come to light
which, so soon as Kunz followed it up, vanished in mist like a jack-o'
lantern. And often as he failed he would not be overweary; and once,
when he was staying at Nuremberg and tidings came from Venice that a
certain German who might be Herdegen was dwelling a slave at Joppa, he
made ready to set forth for that place to ransom him forthwith. My
grand-uncle, who in the face of death was eagerly striving to win the
grace of Heaven by good works, suffered him to depart, and at my entreaty
he took my squire Akusch with him, inasmuch as he could still speak
Arabic, which was his mother-tongue. Likewise I besought Kunz to make it
his care to restore the lad to his people, if it should befall that he
might find them, albeit hitherto we had made enquiry for them in vain.
This he promised me to do; yet, often as that good youth had longed to
see his native land once more, and much as he had talked in praise of its
hot sun, in our cold winter seasons, it went hard with the good lad to
depart from us; and when he took leave of me he could not cease from
assuring me that in his own land he would do all that in him lay to find
the brother of his beloved mistress.