er were bought by Sidi ben Moula,
a rich old merchant who was smitten by the pretty, delicate looks of
Judith, whom he thenceforth treated as if she had been his own child. In
this condition they lived with greater happiness than falls to the lot
of most slaves, until the beginning of last year, when Sidi died, and
his possessions fell to his brother, Bare ben Moula. Then Mrs. Godwin
appeals to Bare for her liberty and to be sent home to her country,
saying that what price (in reason) he chooses to set upon their heads
she will pay from her estate in England--a thing which she had proposed
before to Sidi, but he would not hear of it because of his love for
Judith and his needing no greater fortune than he had. But this Bare,
though he would be very well content, being also an old man, to have his
household managed by Mrs. Godwin and to adopt Judith as his child, being
of a more avaricious turn than his brother, at length consents to it, on
condition that her ransoms be paid before she quits Barbary. And so,
casting about how this may be done, Mrs. Godwin finds a captive whose
price has been paid, about to be taken to Palma in the Baleares, and to
him she entrusts two letters." Here Don Sanchez pulls two folded sheets
of vellum from his pocket, and presenting one to me, he says:

"Mayhap you recognise this hand, Mr. Knight."

And I, seeing the signature Elizabeth Godwin, answers quickly enough:
"Aye, 'tis my dear cousin Bess, her own hand."

"This," says the Don, handing the other to Evans, "you may understand."

"I can make out 'tis writ in the Moorish style," says Evans, "but the
meaning of it I know not, for I can't tell great A from a bull's foot
though it be in printed English."

"'Tis an undertaking on the part of Bare ben Moula," says the Don, "to
deliver up at Dellys in Barbary the persons of Mrs. Godwin and her
daughter against the payment of five thousand gold ducats within one
year. The other writing tells its own story."

Mr. Hopkins took the first sheet from me and read it aloud. It was
addressed to Mr. Richard Godwin, Hurst Court, Chislehurst in Kent, and
after giving such particulars of her past as we had already heard from
Don Sanchez, she writes thus: "And now, my dear nephew, as I doubt not
you (as the nearest of my kindred to my dear husband after us two poor
relicts) have taken possession of his estate in the belief we were all
lost in our voyage from Italy, I do pray you for the love of God and