Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/92

80 The piratical squadron turned eastward at the end of February 1608 bound to plunder "the shipping of Syria." Early in March, it came on to blow and the squadron was scattered. The great Soderina with her frame much weakened by her numerous new gun-ports, and her upper works much strained by the weight of her new brass guns, began to labour and leak. "About one hundred miles off Cerigo," when the weather was at its worst, she started a plank, and went to the bottom. More than three hundred Turks sank with her. The sole survivors were "four men and a boy" who were found afloat on some wreckage by a passing ship, going for Marseilles. Ward escaped with his life, owing to his skill as a boatman; for while the storm was at its worst he left the Soderina in a boat, in which he managed to get aboard the Little John. The news of the disaster reached Tunis before him through the five survivors who had been taken to Marseilles. When Ward returned there, after his cruise, he "was nearly torn in pieces by the Janissaries," who were furious with him for his desertion of the flag-ship, and for the loss of so many true believers. It cost