Promising to make his story as short as he possibly could, Don Sanchez began: 

“On the coming of our present king to his throne, Sir Richard Godwin was recalled from Italy, whither he had been sent as embassador by the Protector.  He sailed from Livorno with his wife and his daughter Judith, a child of nine years old at that time, in the Seahawk.”

“I remember her,” says Evans, “as stout a ship as ever was put to sea.”

“On the second night of her voyage the Seahawk became parted from her convoy, and the next day she was pursued and overtaken by a pair of Barbary pirates, to whom she gave battle.”

“Aye, and I’d have done the same,” cries Evans, “though they had been a score.”

“After a long and bloody fight,” continues Don Sanchez, “the corsairs succeeded in boarding the Seahawk and overcoming the remnant of her company.”

“Poor hearts! would I had been there to help ’em,” says Evans.

“Exasperated by the obstinate resistance of these English and their own losses, the pirates would grant no mercy, but tying the living to the dead they cast all overboard save Mrs. Godwin and her daughter.  Her lot was even worse; for her wounded husband, Sir Richard, was snatched from her arms and flung into the sea before her eyes, and he sank crying farewell to her.”

“These Turks have no hearts in their bellies, you must understand,” explains Evans.  “And nought but venom in their veins.”

“The Seahawk was taken to Alger, and there Mrs. Godwin and her daughter were sold for slaves in the public market-place.”

“I have seen ’em sold by the score there,” says Evans, “and fetch but an onion a head.”

“By good fortune the mother and daughter were bought by Sidi ben Moula, a rich old merchant who was smitten by the pretty, delicate looks of Judith, whom he thenceforth treated as if she had been his own child.  In this condition they lived with greater happiness than falls to the lot of most slaves, until the beginning of last year, when Sidi died, and his possessions fell to his brother, Bare ben Moula.  Then Mrs. Godwin appeals to Bare for her liberty and to be sent home to her country, saying that what price (in reason) he chooses to set upon their heads she will pay from her estate in England—­a thing which she had proposed before to Sidi, but he would not hear of it because of his love for Judith and his needing no greater fortune than he had.  But this Bare, though he would be very well content, being also an old man, to have his household managed by Mrs. Godwin and to adopt Judith as his child, being of a more avaricious turn than his brother, at length consents to it, on condition that her ransoms be paid before she quits Barbary.  And so, casting about how this may be done, Mrs. Godwin finds a captive whose price has been paid, about to be taken to Palma in the Baleares, and to him she entrusts two letters.”  Here Don Sanchez pulls two folded sheets of vellum from his pocket, and presenting one to me, he says: