w me, gentlemen," he observed, with a courteous tone, in
pure Romaic. "Unfortunately, I do not enjoy the same happiness. Will
you inform me where it was we met?"

"Pardon, sir, for our rudeness," answered one of the three, rather
abashed. "We mistook you for another person--we were trying to
recollect where we had seen you."

"It is not impossible that you may have met me before, if you have been
in Italy, in which country I have resided for some years; or lately in
Sicily," answered the Greek. "In the fair city of Valetta you could not
have seen me, as I only landed an hour ago from the last-mentioned
island, and in our native Greece, I have not been since the days of my
early boyhood, though I am on the very point of returning thither."

"Then, clearly, we are mistaken," replied another of the three. "We,
ourselves, arrived here only yesterday from Greece, after encountering
numerous hardships and dangers. Among others, when off the southern end
of Cerigo, our vessel was boarded by a rascally pirate, manned, too, by
our own countrymen, who robbed us of everything we possessed, which they
could carry off, and we fully believe they would have sunk the ship, and
murdered us, had not a British man-of-war hove in sight, and made them
sheer off before they had completed their work."

"I dare say they would," replied the Greek, quietly. "Such gentry, I
have heard, generally consider that the only safe plan of avoiding
detection, and the troublesome affair of a trial, and perhaps a very
disagreeable result, is to stop the mouths of those they plunder beneath
the waves, lest they should afterwards tell inconvenient tales of them.
If they thought you had escaped, they would take very good care another
time not to commit such a blunder."

"Why, it was certainly from no leniency on the part of the villains that
we were not drowned, for they had bored holes in our ship's bottom, and
thought we should have sunk at once; but, fortunately, a fresh breeze
brought up the man-of-war alongside of us before we went down, and her
people stopped the leak, and saw us safely into port."

"I regret to hear this account you give me," said the stranger, in a
sympathising tone; "though I congratulate you on your narrow escape,--I
may call it miraculous. You are far more fortunate than the generality
of people who fall into the hands of those gentry, I should think. I
was in hopes that our countrymen, since the commencement of the gl