,
_don't resist_. You'll on'y git whacked if you do."

"Thank you, Sambo. But what if I do resist in spite of being whacked?"

"Den you bery soon change your mind, das all. Moreober, my name's not
Sambo. It am Peter de Great."

As he said so Peter the Great drew himself up to his full height, and he
drew himself up to six feet four when he did that!

The captain coming aft at that moment put an abrupt end to the
conversation. Two powerful Moorish seamen accompanied him. These,
without uttering a word, seized Foster by the arms. In the strength of
his indignation our middy was on the point of commencing a tremendous
struggle, when Peter the Great's "_don't resist_," and the emphasis with
which it had been spoken, came to mind, and he suddenly gave in. His
hands were tied behind his back, and he was led down into a small,
dimly-lighted cabin, where, being permitted to sit down on a locker, he
was left to his own reflections.

These were by no means agreeable, as may well be supposed, for he now
knew that he had fallen into the hands of those pests, the Algerine
pirates, who at that time infested the Mediterranean.

With the thoughtlessness of youth Foster had never troubled his mind
much about the piratical city of Algiers. Of course he knew that it was
a stronghold on the northern coast of Africa, inhabited by Moorish
rascals, who, taking advantage of their position, issued from their port
and pounced upon the merchantmen that entered the Mediterranean,
confiscating their cargoes and enslaving their crews and passengers, or
holding them to ransom. He also knew, or had heard, that some of the
great maritime powers paid subsidies to the Dey of Algiers to allow the
vessels of their respective nations to come and go unmolested, but he
could scarcely credit the latter fact. It seemed to him, as indeed it
was, preposterous. "For," said he to the brother middy who had given
him the information, "would not the nations whom the Dey had the
impudence to tax join their fleets together, pay him an afternoon visit
one fine day, and blow him and his Moors and Turks and city into a heap
of rubbish?"

What the middy replied we have now no means of knowing, but certain it
is that his information was correct, for some of the principal nations
did, at that time, submit to the degradation of this tax, and they did
_not_ unite their fleets for the extinction of the pirates.

Poor George Foster now began to find out that