"In his captivity he had made friends with a fellow prisoner, an
Englishman named Prince or Prance (since dead, after no less than
thirty years of servitude), who had fallen among the Moors in the
manner following. In his youth he had been a seaman, and one day in
the year 1370 he was standing idle on Bristol Quay when a young
squire accosted him and offered to hire him for a voyage to France,
naming a good wage and pressing no small share of it upon him as
earnest money. The ship (he said, naming her) lay below at Avonmouth
and would sail that same night. Prince knew the ship and her master,
and judged from the young squire's apparel and bearing that here was
one of those voluntary expeditions by which our young nobles made it
a fashion to seek fame at the expense of our enemies the French; a
venture dangerous indeed but carrying a hopeful chance of high
profits. He agreed, therefore, and joined the ship a little after
nightfall. Toward midnight arrived a boat with our young squire and
one companion, a lady of extreme beauty, who had no sooner climbed
the ship's side than the master cut the anchor-cable and stood out
for sea.
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