Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/34

20 "Listen,' continued Bacri, drawing nearer, and speaking in a lower tone, "the man into whose hands you have fallen is Sidi Hassan, one of the most noted and daring of the pirates on the Barbary coast. Escape from him is impossible. I know him well, and can assure you that your only hope of receiving anything that deserves the title of good treatment depends on your quiet and absolute subjection to his will. Rebellious or even independent bearing will insure your speedy and severe humiliation. We 'dogs of Jews,'" continued Bacri, with a sad smile, "may seem to you to hang our heads rather low sometimes, but I have seen Christian men, as bold as you are, crawl upon the very dust before these Turks of Algiers."

"Our fate, then," said Francisco, "is, I suppose, and as I half suspected, to be slavery in that pirates' nest, Algiers?"

"I fear it is," replied the Jew, "unless Providence permits a storm to set you free; but let me correct your notion of Algiers. A pirates' nest it undoubtedly is, but there are others than pirates in the nest, and some of these are even honest men."

"Ha!" exclaimed the padrone, quickly and with bitterness; "is one of these said honest men a Jew of stalwart frame, and does his connexion with the piratical nest free him from the bonds to which I and my sons are doomed?"