then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the
significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have
been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already
given.

Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general
massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was
far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank
and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers' bench, where
they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which
these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a
large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which
animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of
which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the
Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem,
otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who were vowed to the
extermination of what they, on their side, called "the infidel." It was an
age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes
which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was
distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed
no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture
of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were
doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and
branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and
progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of
the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so
dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether
incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.

The life of the "gallerian" was so hard that his sufferings in many cases
were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of
iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and
wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the
oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a
life as this had not the power to break them down.

To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose
business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror
unspeakable. The ordinary pe