IN WHICH THE STORY OF THE CAPTIVE IS CONTINUED.

SONNET

"Blest souls, that, from this mortal husk set free,

In guerdon of brave deeds beatified,

Above this lowly orb of ours abide

Made heirs of heaven and immortality,

With noble rage and ardour glowing ye

Your strength, while strength was yours, in battle plied,

And with your own blood and the foeman's dyed

The sandy soil and the encircling sea.

It was the ebbing life-blood first that failed

The weary arms; the stout hearts never quailed.

Though vanquished, yet ye earned the victor's crown:

Though mourned, yet still triumphant was your fall

For there ye won, between the sword and wall,

In Heaven glory and on earth renown."

"That is it exactly, according to my recollection," said the captive.

"Well then, that on the fort," said the gentleman, "if my memory serves

me, goes thus:

SONNET

"Up from this wasted soil, this shattered shell,

Whose walls and towers here in ruin lie,

Three thousand soldier souls took wing on high,

In the bright mansions of the blest to dwell.

The onslaught of the foeman to repel

By might of arm all vainly did they try,

And when at length 'twas left them but to die,

Wearied and few the last defenders fell.

And this same arid soil hath ever been

A haunt of countless mournful memories,

As well in our day as in days of yore.

But never yet to Heaven it sent, I ween,

From its hard bosom purer souls than these,

Or braver bodies on its surface bore."

The sonnets were not disliked, and the captive was rejoiced at the

tidings they gave him of his comrade, and continuing his tale, he went on

to say:

The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave orders

to dismantle the Goletta--for the fort was reduced to such a state that

there was nothing left to level--and to do the work more quickly and

easily they mined it in three places; but nowhere were they able to blow

up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old

walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications that

the Fratin had made came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally

the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few

months later died my master, El Uchali, otherwise Uchali Fartax, which

means in Turkish "the scabby renegade;" for that he was; it is the

practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they

may possess; the reason being that there are among them only four

surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman

house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames

either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This "scabby one" rowed

at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor's for fourteen years, and when

over thirty-four years of age, in resentment at having been struck by a

Turk while at the oar, turned renegade and renounced his faith in order

to be able to revenge himself; and such was his valour that, without

owing his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favourites

of the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and

afterwards general-on-sea, which is the third place of trust in the

realm. He was a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he

treated his slaves with great humanity. He had three thousand of them,

and after his death they were divided, as he directed by his will,

between the Grand Signor (who is heir of all who die and shares with the

children of the deceased) and his renegades. I fell to the lot of a

Venetian renegade who, when a cabin boy on board a ship, had been taken

by Uchali and was so much beloved by him that he became one of his most

favoured youths. He came to be the most cruel renegade I ever saw: his

name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich and became king of Algiers.

With him I went there from Constantinople, rather glad to be so near

Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about my unhappy lot, but

to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than in

Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape

without ever finding a favourable time or chance; but in Algiers I

resolved to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished so

dearly; for the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me; and when

in my plots and schemes and attempts the result did not answer my

expectations, without giving way to despair I immediately began to look

out for or conjure up some new hope to support me, however faint or

feeble it might be.




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