Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/107

 they were heart-broken to find that they were compelled to row up and down the very coast-line which they had imagined they had escaped from. For three weeks they held out as best they could, but the weather being absolutely against them, and their slender victuals being at length exhausted, they were compelled to come ashore, hoping to be able to steal some sheep. The Barbarian Moores, however, were on the watch and knew that these unlucky men would be bound to land for supplies. Therefore a band of sixty horsemen were dispatched who secreted themselves behind a sandhill near the sea. There they waited till the Christians had got well inland a good half mile. Then, by a smart movement, the horsemen cut off all retreat to the sea, whilst others pursued the starving voyagers and soon came back with them. They were brought back to the place whence they had so recently escaped. The Sultan ordered that the fugitives should, some of them, have their ears cut off, whilst others were most cruelly thrashed.

The enterprising voyages of the English ships to the Levant in the sixteenth century had been grievously interfered with by the Algerine galleys roving about the Mediterranean, especially in proximity to the Straits of Gibraltar. They would set out from England with goods to deliver and then return with Mediterranean fruits and other commodities. But so often were these valuable ships and cargoes captured by the hateful infidels that the English merchants who had dispatched the goods became seriously at a loss and were compelled to invoke the aid of Elizabeth, who endeavoured, by means of diplomacy, to obtain the release of these ships and to prevent such awkward incidents recurring. To give the names of a few such ships, and to indicate the loss in regard to ships'