t
I had indeed saved myself from burning, but not from that living hell,
the life of a galley-slave.

"I was, then, sent to the galleys, and remained there, how long I know
not, but it seemed to be several years. During the time that I was in
the Spanish galley--for I remained on the same vessel all the time,--we,
together with other vessels, made several attacks upon English ships,
but we were beaten off with heavy loss in every case except one, and
that was when we captured a small English merchantman called the
_Dainty_, the unfortunate crew of which, I suppose, were put into the
Inquisition, as I had been. These many conflicts were productive of
heavy casualties among the slaves, many more, indeed, than among the
soldiers and sailors who composed our fighting-crew, for, when chasing
another vessel, or attacking her broadside to broadside, our enemy
generally depressed his guns in order to hull and if possible sink us,
as in that way only could they prevent us from running alongside. And
every shot that pierced a galley's hull was certain to kill or maim at
least four or five slaves. But our masters cared nothing for that; when
one crew of galley-slaves was exhausted, another batch was sent for to
take their place. There were always plenty of slaves to be had from the
Spanish prisons, and the men we got from them were an even more cruel
and wicked set of rascals than the men who called themselves our
masters.

"Well, I had been a galley-slave among the Spaniards for some years--how
many years, exactly, I cannot tell you, for after a time my senses
became so deadened that I could not take the trouble to count up and
remember the days and weeks as they passed; indeed I became more like an
animal than a human being. I had been with the Spaniards for several
years, I say, when one day we sighted an English merchantman, as we
thought, and chased her. She appeared to be sailing but slowly, and we
very soon caught her up, to find that we had walked, or rather sailed,
into a deeply-laid trap. The Englishman, it appeared, had adopted a
ruse similar to that practised by the Spaniards when they captured the
corsair from Alexandria. The English had disguised their vessel--which
was a war-ship--to look like an innocent and harmless merchant's
trading-vessel, and to retard her speed and allow us to come up with her
they had dropped overboard a couple of light spars connected together by
a broad piece of stout sail-cloth