Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/82

66 good result, in time past. The Turks are well acquainted with and quite prepared for it. Your only chance of mitigating the woes of your condition lies in submission."

"It were better and nobler to die than to submit," said Mariano gloomily.

"It were better and nobler to bow to the will of the Almighty than to commit suicide," retorted Bacri, somewhat sternly. "It is selfishness and pride which induces us to seek deliverance from sorrow and suffering in death. There are men who have thought that truest nobility lay in choosing a life in the midst of suffering and woe for the purpose of alleviating it, and who have acted on their opinion. This lesson, however, is not so frequently learnt by us through precept as in the school of sorrow."

Mariano felt abashed, yet at the same time rather nettled.

"Truly, then," he said, with a glance at his bloodstained shirt, "it seems to me that I have at all events begun my lesson in the right school. However, I believe thou art right, Bacri, and I bear thee no ill-will for the rap thou didst bestow on my skull, which, luckily, is a thick one, else thy ponderous fist had split it from the cranium to the chin."

"We had misjudged you, Bacri," said Francisco, extending his hand, as the Jew rose to depart.