arrived on the coast, some time after
the shipwreck; and willing to repay themselves for the trouble they had
taken, had determined to land, during the night. Two renegadoes, who
knew the country, undertook to conduct the barbarians to the village of
Gadara, and fulfilled their promise but too well.

About one in the morning, when labour enjoys repose, and villainy wakes
to remorse, the dreadful cry _to arms! to arms!_ was heard.

The Corsairs had landed, and were burning and slaughtering all before
them. The darkness of the night, the groans of the dying, and the
shrieks of the inhabitants, filled every heart with consternation. The
trembling wives caught their husbands in their arms; and the old men
sought succour from their sons. In a moment the village was in flames,
the light of which discovered the gory scymitars and white turbans of
the Moors.

Those barbarians, the flambeau in one hand, and the hatchet in the
other, were breaking and burning the doors of the houses; making their
way through the smoaking ruins, to seek for victims or for plunder, and
returning covered with blood, and loaded with booty.

Here they rush into the chamber, to which two lovers, the bride and
bridegroom of the day, had been conducted by their mother. Each on their
knees, side by side, was pouring forth thanks to heaven, for having
crowned their faithful wishes. An unfeeling wretch, remorseless, seizes
the terrified bride; loads her unhappy lover, whom in cruelty he spares,
with chains; and snatches before his face, in spite of his distraction,
his tears, prayers, and exclamations, that prize which was due to him
alone.

There they take the sleeping infant from its cradle. The mother,
frantic, defends it, singly, against an host. Nothing can repel, nothing
can terrify her. Death she braves and provokes. For her child she
supplicates, threatens, and combats; while the tender infant, already
seized by these tigers, starts, wakes, stares, with the wild agony of
terror, on the grim visage of its murderer, and sinks into convulsive
horror and sleep, from which it wakes no more.

Nothing is held sacred by these monsters. They force their way into the
temples of the Most High, break the shrines, strip off the gold, and
trample the holy relics under foot. Alas! of what avail to the priests
is their sacred character? to the aged their grey hairs? to youth its
graces, or to infancy its innocence? Slavery, fire, devastation, and
death are e