Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/86

68 its appearance, armed with two twenty-four pounders at the prow. The vessel in which Arago sailed endeavoured to escape, but a cannon ball which penetrated their sails, while their pursuer rapidly gained upon them, warned them to yield, and the corsair conveyed them to Rosas on the Spanish coast. Here Arago was recognized as a Frenchman, and thrown into a cruel imprisonment with a view to compel him to avow himself the real owner of the cargo. On one occasion a strong picket presented themselves at the door of the prison, the captain of which led the prisoners to believe that they were to be led out for military execution; but fortunately this turned out to be a mere ruse to extort a confession. These facts having been reported to the Dey of Algiers, and that sovereign having threatened to declare war against Spain if the vessel and prisoners were not given up, the Spanish authorities yielded, and Arago and the faithful Rodriguez were again at liberty to pursue their voyage. Once more they found themselves within sight of Marseilles, and their vessel was actually steering for the harbour, when a furious north-west wind, known in that part as the Mistral, suddenly arose, and drove their little vessel with great violence before it. To their vexation the wanderers again saw the French coast fade from their view, and after many hardships, found themselves, some days later, on a lonely part of the coast of Africa. They landed in the harbour of Boujie, three days' sail from Algiers, whither they determined to return; but their ill fortune was still far from being exhausted. They learnt that their friend, the Dey of Algiers, had just been assassinated, and a new Dey chosen, who determined to seize the heavy trunk, in which Arago carried the instruments and books which