ext books, and through the 1860s and
1870s there was a flow of books from his pen, sometimes four in a year,
all very good reading. The rate of production diminished in the last
ten or fifteen years of his life, but the quality never failed.

He published over ninety books under his own name, and a few books for
very young children under the pseudonym "Comus".

For today's taste his books are perhaps a little too religious, and what
we would nowadays call "pi". In part that was the way people wrote in
those days, but more important was the fact that in his days at the Red
River Settlement, in the wilds of Canada, he had been a little
dissolute, and he did not want his young readers to be unmindful of how
they ought to behave, as he felt he had been.

Some of his books were quite short, little over 100 pages. These books
formed a series intended for the children of poorer parents, having less
pocket-money. These books are particularly well-written and researched,
because he wanted that readership to get the very best possible for
their money. They were published as six series, three books in each
series. One of these series is "On the Coast", which includes "Saved by
the Lifeboat".

Re-created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, July 2003.

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THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS, AN ALGERINE TALE OF PIRACY AND SLAVERY, BY R.M.
BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

AN ALGERINE STORY.

THE HERO IS BLOWN AWAY, CAPTURED, CRUSHED, COMFORTED, AND ASTONISHED.

One beautiful summer night, about the beginning of the present century,
a young naval officer entered the public drawing-room of a hotel at
Nice, and glanced round as if in search of some one.

Many people were assembled there--some in robust, others in delicate,
health, many in that condition which rendered it doubtful to which class
they belonged, but all engaged in the quiet buzz of conversation which,
in such a place, is apt to set in after dinner.

The young Englishman, for such he evidently was, soon observed an
elderly lady beckoning to him at the other end of the _salon_, and was
quickly seated between her and a fragile girl whose hand he gently took
hold of.

"Mother," he said, to the elderly lady, "I'm going to have a row on the
Mediterranean. The night is splendid, the air balmy, the stars
gorgeous."

"Now, George," interrupted the girl, with a little smile, "don't be
flowery. We know all ab