Part 15 (1/2)

How it came to happen that Sakr-el-Bahr, the Hawk of the Sea, the Muslie of the Mediterranean, the terror of Christians, and the beloved of Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers, would be one and the saentleth set forth in the chronicles of Lord Henry Goade His lordshi+p conveys to us so he found that fact by the tedious minuteness hich he follows step by step this extraordinary metahteen which he has left us The whole, however, e be summarized into one short chapter

Sir Oliver was one of a score of men ere rescued from the sea by the crew of the Spanish vessel that had sunk the S; another was Jasper Leigh, the skipper All of them were carried to Lisbon, and there handed over to the Court of the Holy Office Since they were heretics all--or nearly all--it was fit and proper that the Brethren of St

Dominic should undertake their conversion in the first place Sir Oliver caiousto burn alive if the adoption of other men's opinions upon an extremely hypothetical future state would suffice to save him from the stake He accepted Catholic baptish, it will be conceived that the elasticity of the skipper's conscience was no less than Sir Oliver's, and he was certainly not the man to be roasted for a trifle of faith

No doubt there would be great rejoicings in the Holy House over the rescue of these two unfortunate souls from the certain perdition that had awaited them It followed that as converts to the Faith they ar were profusely shed over them by the Hounds of God So ed of it, having done penance in proper form at an Auto held on the Rocio at Lisbon, candle in hand and sanbenito on their shoulders The Church dis and an injunction to persevere in the ways of salvation to which with such meek kindness she had inducted them

Now this dismissal amounted to a rejection They were, as a consequence, thrown back upon the secular authorities, and the secular authorities had yet to punish them for their offence upon the seas No offence could be proved, it is true But the courts were satisfied that this lack of offence was but the natural result of a lack of opportunity Conversely, they reasoned, it was not to be doubted that with the opportunity the offence would have been forthco Their assurance of this was based upon the fact that when the Spaniard fired across the bows of the S as an invitation to heave to, she had kept upon her course

Thus, with unanswerable Castilian logic was the evil conscience of her skipper proven Captain Leigh protested on the other hand that his action had been dictated by his lack of faith in Spaniards and his firm belief that all Spaniards were pirates to be avoided by every honest seath of armaments It was a plea that won hies

Sir Oliver fervently urged that he was no entleainst his will, being the victi executed by her venal captain The court heard his plea with respect, and asked to know his name and rank He was so very indiscreet as to answer truthfully The result was extremely educative to Sir Oliver; it showed hi of the Spanish archives The court produced docues to recite to him most of that portion of his life that had been spent upon the seas, and many an aard little circu since, which he now recalled, and which certainly was not calculated to hter

Had he not been in the Barbados in such a year, and had he not there captured the galleon Maria de las Dolores? What was that but an act of villainous piracy? Had he not scuttled a Spanish carack four years ago in the bay of Funchal? Had he not been with that pirate Hawkins in the affair at San Juan de Ulloa? And so on Questions poured upon hiiven himself the trouble to accept conversion and all that it entailed at the hands of the Brethren of St Doan to appear to him that he had but wasted tiled on a secular rope as an offering to the vengeful Gods of outraged Spain

So alleys in the Mediterranean were in urgent need of men at the tih, and some others of the luckless crew of the Sed their lives, though it is to be doubted whether any of theratulation Chained each th of links between, they formed part of a considerable herd of unfortunates, ere driven across Portugal into Spain and then southward to Cadiz The last that Sir Oliver saw of Captain Leigh was on the aol Thereafter throughout that weary iain

In Cadiz Sir Oliver spent a month in a vast enclosed space that was open to the sky, but nevertheless of an indescribable foulness, a place of filth, disease, and suffering beyond human conception, the details of which the curious may seek for himself inby far to be retailed here

At the end of that month he was one of those picked out by an officer as alley that was to convey the Infanta to Naples He owed this to his vigorous constitution which had successfully withstood the infections of that mephitic place of torments, and to the fine thehich the officer pu a beast of burden--which, indeed, is precisely what he was doing

The galley to which our gentleman was dispatched was a vessel of fifty oars, each manned by seven men They were seated upon a sort of staircase that followed the slope of the oar, running froway in the vessel's middle down to the shalloarks

The place allotted to Sir Oliver was that next the gangway Here, stark naked as when he was born, he was chained to the bench, and in those chains, let us say at once, he rele moment's intermission, for six whole months

Between hiht but a flimsy and dirty sheepskin Froth, whilst the distance separating it from the next one was a bare four feet In that cramped space of ten feet by four, Sir Oliver and his six oar---for they slept in their chains at the oar without sufficient room in which to lie at stretch

Anon Sir Oliver became hardened and inured to that unspeakable existence, that living death of the galley-slave But that first long voyage to Naples was ever to remain the ht endless hours at a time, and on one occasion for no less than ten hours, did he pull at his oar without a single moment's pause With one foot on the stretcher, the other on the bench in front of hily heavy fifteen-foot oar, he would bend his back to thrust forward--and upwards so to clear the shoulders of the groaning, sweating slaves in front of hi the blade down to the water, and having gripped he would rise froht into the pull, and so fall back with clank of chain upon the groaning bench to swing forward once ht beca, straining ache Then would come the sharp fierce cut of the boatswain's whip to revive energies that flagged however little, and so stripe upon his naked back

Thus day in day out, now broiled and blistered by the pitiless southern sun, now chilled by the night dehilst he took his cra rest, indescribably filthy and dishevelled, his hair and beard matted with endless sweat, unwashed save by the rains which in that season were all too rare, choked almost by the stench of his otten of decaying sheepskins and Heaven alone knohat other foulnesses of that floating hell He was sparingly fed upon weevilled biscuit and vile iven luke-ater that was often stale, saving that so was more than usually protracted the boatswains would thrust lu slaves to sustain thee, and there were other diseases aotten of the friction of the bench which were common to all, and which each must endure as best he could With the slave whose disease conquered hi the limit of his endurance, permitted himself to swoon, the boat-swains had a short way The diseased were flung overboard; the swooning were dragged out upon the gangway or bridge and flogged there to revive theed on until they were a horrid bleeding pulp, which was then heaved into the sea

Once or then they stood to ard the silded poop where the Infanta and her attendants travelled, the hel weary hours the slaves would hold the galley in position, backing her up gently against the wind so as not to lose way

The nue amounted to close upon a quarter of the total But there were reserves in the prow, and these were drawn upon to fill the empty places None but the fittest could survive this terrible ordeal

Of these was Sir Oliver, and of these too was his ihbour at the oar, a stalwart, powerful, i Moor, who accepted his fate with a stoicism that aroused Sir Oliver's adether, their religions ht, for enemies despite the fact that they were fellows in ed Jeho had collapsed in ed in the usualto behold the scarlet prelate who acco on from the poop-rail with hard unmerciful eyes, was filled with such a passion at all this inhumanity and at the cold pitilessness of that professed servant of the Gentle and Pitiful Saviour, that aloud he cursed all Christians in general and that scarlet Prince of the Church in particular

He turned to the Moor beside hi him in Spanish--