Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/90

 captives, and the other half in repairing and increasing the usefulness of the hospital, where he resided, constantly attending and consoling the sick slaves. At last, thirsting for martyrdom, he one day rushed into a mosque, and, with crucifix in hand, cursed and reviled the false Prophet Mohammed. In all Mohammedan countries, the penalty of this offense is death. But so much were the piety and good works of Pedro respected by the Algerine government, that they anxiously endeavored to avoid inflicting the punishment of their law. Earnestly they solicited him, with promise of free pardon, to acknowledge that he was intoxicated or deranged when he committed the rash act, but in vain. Pedro was burned; and one of his leg-bones was long carefully preserved as a holy relic in the Spanish Hospital.

In 1612, a young Mohammedan lady, fifteen years of age, named Fatima, daughter of Mehemet Aga, a man of high rank in Algiers, when on her way to Constantinople to be married, was captured by a Christian cruiser, carried into Corsica, and a very large sum of money demanded for her ransom. The distressed father speedily sent the money by two relatives, who were furnished with safe-conduct passes by the brothers of Redemption. On their arrival in Corsica, they were informed that the young lady had become a Christian, was christened Maria Eugenia, and married to a Corsican gentleman; and that the money brought for her ransom must be appropriated as her dowry. The relatives were permitted to see Maria; she declared her name was still Fatima; and that her baptism and marriage were forced upon her. The return of the relatives without either the lady or the money caused great excitement in Algiers. By way of retaliation, the brothers of Redemption were loaded with chains, and thrown into prison, and compelled to pay Mehemet Aga a sum equal to that which he had sent for his daughter's ransom. In a short time, however, they were released, and permitted to resume their customary duties.

When returning from a successful cruise, as soon as an Algerine corsair arrived within sight of the harbor, her crew commenced firing guns of rejoicing and triumph, and continued them at intervals until she came to anchor. Summoned by these signals of success, the inhabitants would flock in numbers to the port, there to learn the value of the prize, the circumstances of its capture, and to congratulate the pirates. Morgan, a quaint old writer, many years attached to the British consulate, says: "These are the times when Algiers very visibly puts on a quite new countenance, and it may well be compared to a great bee-hive. All is hurry, every one busy, and a cheerful aspect succeeds a strange gloom and discontent, like what is to be seen everywhere else, when the complaint of dullness of trade, scarcity of business, and stagnation of cash reigns universal; and which is constantly to be seen in Algiers during every interval between the taking of good prizes." The dey received the eighth part of the value of all prizes, for the service of the government, and had the privilege of selecting his share of the captives, who were brought from the vessel to the court-yard of his palace, where the European consuls attended to claim any of their countrymen who might be considered free in accordance with the