sea-captain when we are sent on board an English ship, for if they ask
me any questions on this business of navigating, I am done for a
certainty."

"Rest easy on that score, Evans," replies the Don. "I will answer for
you, for I see very clearly by your complexion that you will soon be
past answering them yourself."

And this forecast was quickly verified; for ere the galley had dipped a
dozen times to the waves, poor Dawson was laid low with a most horrid
sickness like any dying man.

By sundown we sighted the island of Maggiore, and in the roads there we
cast anchor for the night, setting sail again at daybreak; and in this
latitude we beat up and down a day and a night without seeing any sail,
but on the morning of the third day a fleet of five big ships appeared
to the eastward, and shifting our course we bore down upon them with
amazing swiftness. Then when we were near enough to the foremast to see
her English flag and the men aboard standing to their deck guns for a
defence, our old Moor fires a gun in the air, takes in his sails, and
runs up a great white flag for a sign of peace. And now with shrewd
haste a boat was lowered, and we were set in it with a pair of oars, and
the old pirate bidding us farewell in his tongue, clapt on all sail and
stood out before the wind, leaving us there to shift for ourselves. Don
Sanchez took one oar, and I t'other,--Dawson lying in the bottom and not
able to move a hand to save his life,--and Moll held the tiller, and so
we pulled with all our force, crying out now and then for fear we should
not be seen, till by God's providence we came alongside the Talbot of
London, and were presently hoisted aboard without mishap. Then the
captain of the Talbot and his officers gathering about us were mighty
curious to know our story, and Don Sanchez very briefly told how we had
gone in the Red Rose of Bristol to redeem two ladies from slavery; how
we had found but one of these ladies living (at this Moll buries her
face in her hands as if stricken with grief); how, on the eve of our
departure, some of our crew in a drunken frolic had drowned a Turk of
Alger, for which we were condemned by their court to pay an indemnity
far and away beyond our means; how they then made this a pretext to
seize our things, though we were properly furnished with the Duke's
pass, and hold our men in bond; and how having plundered us of all we
had, and seeing there was no more to be got, they did offer us ou