to my recollection," said the captive.

"Well then, that on the fort," said the gentleman, "if my memory serves
me, goes thus:

SONNET

"Up from this wasted soil, this shattered shell,
Whose walls and towers here in ruin lie,
Three thousand soldier souls took wing on high,
In the bright mansions of the blest to dwell.
The onslaught of the foeman to repel
By might of arm all vainly did they try,
And when at length 'twas left them but to die,
Wearied and few the last defenders fell.
And this same arid soil hath ever been
A haunt of countless mournful memories,
As well in our day as in days of yore.
But never yet to Heaven it sent, I ween,
From its hard bosom purer souls than these,
Or braver bodies on its surface bore."

The sonnets were not disliked, and the captive was rejoiced at the
tidings they gave him of his comrade, and continuing his tale, he went on
to say:

The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave orders
to dismantle the Goletta--for the fort was reduced to such a state that
there was nothing left to level--and to do the work more quickly and
easily they mined it in three places; but nowhere were they able to blow
up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old
walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications that
the Fratin had made came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally
the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few
months later died my master, El Uchali, otherwise Uchali Fartax, which
means in Turkish "the scabby renegade;" for that he was; it is the
practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they
may possess; the reason being that there are among them only four
surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman
house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames
either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This "scabby one" rowed
at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor's for fourteen years, and when
over thirty-four years of age, in resentment at having been struck by a
Turk while at the oar, turned renegade and renounced his faith in order
to be able to revenge himself; and such was his valour that, without
owing his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favourites
of the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and
afterwards general-on-sea, which is the third place of trust in the