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In the year one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, at the season
immediately following the raging of the simoon, it chanced that a
pirate ship sailed into the haven of Suda, whence the magnificent
ruins of the ancient Seleucia are still to be seen. The corsair
carried the French flag, but her crew consisted entirely of Albanians.
The deck was encumbered with wreckage, cast down upon it by the
happily weathered tempest, and this the crew were energetically
engaged in removing; but every one on shore was astounded to see her
there at all, much more in such trim condition, for she had lost
neither mast nor sail. But then, after the manner of corsairs in
general, she was very much better equipped with both masts and sails
than ships of ordinary tonnage are wont to be. In the same hour that
the ship cast anchor the largest of her boats was lowered, and manned
by four and twenty well-armed Trinariots. Every one of these stout
fellows carried orders of merit on his cheek, the scars of many a
battle, which accentuated the savage sternness of their weather-beaten
faces.

A little old man descended after them into the boat; presently his
horse was also let down by means of a crane. This was the officer in
command. He was a middling-sized but very muscular old fellow, already
beyond his seventieth and not very far from his eightieth year; but he
was as vigorous now both in mind and body as he had been when his
beard, which now swept across his breast like the wing of a swan, was
as dark as the raven's plume.

His broad shoulders spoke of extraordinary strength, while the firm
expression of his face, the flashing lustre of his eyes, and his calm
and valiant look, testified to the fact that this strength was
squandered upon no coward soul.

Some stout rowing brought the boat at last near to the shore, but not
all the efforts of the men could bring her to land; the wash of the
sea was so great that the foam-crested waves again and again drove the
boat back from the shore.

At a sign from the old man three of the ship's crew leaped into the
waves in order to drag after them the boat's hawser, but the sea tore
it out of the hands of all three as easily as a wild bull would toss a
pack of children.

Then the old man vaulted upon his steed, kicking the stirrups aside,
and leaped among the churning waves. Twice the horse was jostled back
by the assault of the foaming billows, but at the thi