s were white-hot, and the chief driver called to us in Spanish: `We
must escape that cursed heretic-ship yonder. Now, you all see these
irons? If I see one of you flagging in your efforts, that man will be
branded with them, and when we get into harbour will be handed over to
the office of the Holy Inquisition as a heretic and an aider and abettor
of heretics.' This cruel threat drove us all nearly mad, and--for we
knew what that meant--our muscles cracked again as we laboured on at the
oars, hampered as we were by the bloody corpses of our fellow-slaves.
For myself, I was away from the centre of the galley, I thank God! and
near an open port, so I got a little air, which refreshed me; but I
presently saw one of the poor fellows near the middle of the vessel,
where the air was stifling, begin to relax his exertions. He was
fainting with the heat and fatigue of the chase. The chief
slave-driver, whose name, I remember, was Alvarez, saw it too, and
called out: `Juan, this heretic is fainting; bring the fire-bucket.'

"The man brought it; Alvarez took out a white-hot iron, and--oh, sirs, I
cannot describe what then happened, but I can hear that man's shrieks
now, as I tell of it! It was awful; and would shrivel my tongue to
relate, and your ears to hear. Well, sirs, not to harrow you further by
those fearful methods of making us work, we at last got into Cadiz, and
escaped the English ship; but more than half of the remaining slaves
died from their exertions.

"Our diminished crew was replenished by a lot of men from the prisons of
Spain, and among them was a man named Jose Leirya. This man was my evil
genius; and, as he marked the turning-point in my life from good to
evil, I may as well describe his appearance; for he is on these seas
now, and I wish you to know the man, so that if you should meet him with
a sufficient force to capture him, you may recognise the villain. He
was sent down to the galley one morning with a number of other men, to
make up her complement afresh after the encounter with the Englishman.
I recognised him for a leader of men the moment he came aboard the
galley, and, as he was chained next to me on the same tier, I had ample
opportunity for observing his appearance. He was an enormously tall and
broad man, of extremely dark complexion. He said he was of Portugal,
but I should say he had more Moorish blood in him than anything else.
He wore his hair long, and it fell in thick black ring