Thus she went on board ship and drifted
away again.
Now, for another season, she went about at the mercy of winds and
waves, in icy waters where winds whistled through the frozen rigging,
and down into tropical seas where she lay becalmed for months in the
glassy water. Then fresh breezes would spring up and drive her this
way or that, as they listed. But this time she had her babe for
comfort, and he grew to be a child near five years old before she was
rescued. And this is the way it happened. When the Emperor of Rome
heard of the deeds the cruel Soldaness had done, and how his daughter's
husband had been slain, he sent an army to Syria, and all these years
they had besieged the royal city till it was burnt and destroyed. Now
the fleet, returning to Rome, met the ship in which Constance sailed,
and they fetched her and her child to her native country. The senator
who commanded the fleet was her uncle, but he knew her not, and she did
not make herself known. He took her into his own house, and her aunt,
the senator's wife, loved her greatly, never guessing she was her own
princess and kinswoman.
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