re long. Men of
all ages and conditions, accustomed to indoor life, could not bear the
exposure to the sun, rain, and snow, which the punishment of the
galley-slave involved. The old men and the young soon succumbed and
died. Middle-aged men survived the longest. But there was always a
change going on. When the numbers of a galley became thinned by death,
there were other Huguenots ready to be sent on board--perhaps waiting
in some inland prison until another "Great Chain" could be made up for
the seaports, to go on board the galley-ships, to be manacled,
tortured, and killed off as before.

Such was the treatment of the galley-slaves in time of peace. But the
galleys were also war-ships. They carried large numbers of armed men
on board. Sometimes they scoured the Mediterranean, and protected
French merchant-ships against the Sallee rovers. At other times they
were engaged in the English channel, attacking Dutch and English
ships, sometimes picking up a prize, at other times in actual
sea-fight.

When the service required, they were compelled to row incessantly
night and day, without rest, save in the last extremity; and they were
treated as if, on the first opportunity, in sight of the enemy, they
would revolt and betray the ship; hence they were constantly watched
by the soldiers on board, and if any commotion appeared amongst them,
they were shot down without ceremony, and their bodies thrown into the
sea. Loaded cannons were also placed at the end of the benches of
rowers, so as to shoot them down in case of necessity.

Whenever an enemy's ship came up, the galley-slaves were covered over
with a linen screen, so as to prevent them giving signals to the
enemy. When an action occurred, they were particularly exposed to
danger, for the rowers and their oars were the first to be shot
at--just as the boiler or screw of a war-steamer would be shot at
now--in order to disable the ship. The galley-slaves thus suffered
much more from the enemy's shot than the other armed men of the ship.
The rowers benches were often filled with dead, before the soldiers
and mariners on board had been touched.

Marteilhe, while a galley-slave on board _La Palme_, was engaged in an
adventure which had nearly cost him his life. Four French galleys,
after cruising along the English coast from Dover to the Downs, got
sight of a fleet of thirty-five merchant vessels on their way from the
Texel to the Thames, under the protection of one small