[3] The Turks, finding their own troops not well adapted to the irregular and desperate kind of warfare waged by the Uzcoques, and also unable to compete with them in the rapidity of their movements, formed a corps expressly for the pursuit of the freebooters, which was composed of men as wild and desperate as themselves.  With these Martellossi, as they were called, the Uzcoques had frequent and sanguinary conflicts.  Minucci says of the Martellossi, in his Historia degli Uscochi, that they were “Scelerati barbari anco ‘ordine de’ medesime Scochi.”

To this band belonged the wild figures, whose appearance on the shore has been noticed, and who were busily employed in rummaging a number of sacks and packages which lay scattered on the ground.  They pursued their occupation in profound silence, except when the discovery of some object of unusual value elicited an exclamation of delight, or a disappointment brought a grumbling curse to their lips.  They seemed carefully to avoid noise, lest it should draw down upon them the observation of the castle that frowned above their heads, and at the embrasures and windows of which they cast frequent and frightened glances, although the darkness of the ravine, at the entrance of which they had stationed themselves, and the rapidly deepening twilight, rendered it almost impossible to discover them.

“By the beard of the prophet, Hassan!” exclaimed in a suppressed tone a young Turk, who lay bound hand and foot at a short distance from the pirates, “why do these mangy curs keep us lying so long on the wet grass?  Why do they not seek their kennel up yonder?”

The person addressed was a little, round, oily-looking Turk, a Levant merchant, whose traffic had called him to one of the neighbouring islands, and who had been laid hold of on his passage by the Uzcoques.  He was sitting up, being less strictly manacled than his more youthful and energetic-looking companion; and his comical countenance wore a most desponding expression, as, in reply to the question put to him, he shook his head slowly from side to side, at the same time gravely stroking his beard.

“By Allah!” exclaimed the young man impatiently, as he saw the pirates rummaging more eagerly than ever, and now and then concealing something of value under their cloaks, “could not the greedy knaves wait till they got home before they shared the plunder?  May their fathers’ souls burn!”

“What saith the sage Oghuz?” quoth old Hassan slowly, “’As people grow rich their maw widens.’”

“Silence, unbelieving hound!” exclaimed a harsh voice behind him, and a thump between the shoulders warned the old Turk to keep his proverbs for a more fitting season.  The pirate was about to repeat the blow, when suddenly his hand fell, and the curses died away upon his lips.