we pulled with all our force, crying out now and then for fear we should
not be seen, till by God's providence we came alongside the Talbot of
London, and were presently hoisted aboard without mishap. Then the
captain of the Talbot and his officers gathering about us were mighty
curious to know our story, and Don Sanchez very briefly told how we had
gone in the Red Rose of Bristol to redeem two ladies from slavery; how
we had found but one of these ladies living (at this Moll buries her
face in her hands as if stricken with grief); how, on the eve of our
departure, some of our crew in a drunken frolic had drowned a Turk of
Alger, for which we were condemned by their court to pay an indemnity
far and away beyond our means; how they then made this a pretext to
seize our things, though we were properly furnished with the Duke's
pass, and hold our men in bond; and how having plundered us of all we
had, and seeing there was no more to be got, they did offer us our
freedom for a written quittance of all they had taken for their
justification if ever they should be brought to court; and finally, how,
accepting of these conditions, we were shipped aboard their galley with
nothing in the world but a few trifles, begged by Mistress Judith in
remembrance of her mother.

This story was accepted without any demur; nay, Captain Ballcock, being
one of those men who must ever appear to know all things, supported it
in many doubtful particulars, saying that he remembered the Rose of
Bristol quite well; that he himself had seen a whole ship's crew sold
into slavery for no greater offence than breaking a mosque window; that
the Duke's pass counted for nothing with these Turks; that he knew the
galley we were brought in as well as he knew Paul's Church, having
chased it a dozen times, yet never got within gunshot for her swift
sailing, etc., which did much content us to hear.