“Three or four times they nearly got a footing on deck, but we managed to beat them off somehow.  We lost a third of our crew.  I don’t think there was a man escaped without a wound.  I was laid up for three months, after I got home, with a slash on the shoulder, which pretty nigh took off my left arm.  However, we saved the ship and the cargo, which was a valuable one, and Messer Polani saw that no one was the worse for his share in the business.  There’s no more liberal-hearted man in the trade than he is, and whatever may be the scarcity of hands in the port, there is never any difficulty in getting a good crew together for his vessels.

“Of course there are the roughs with the smooths.  Some years ago I was in prison for six months, with all my crew, in Azoff.  It was the work of those rascally Genoese, who are always doing us a bad turn when they have the chance, even when we are at peace with them.  They set the mind of the native khan—­that is the prince of the country—­against us by some lying stories that we had been engaged in smuggling goods in at another port.  And suddenly, in the middle of the night, in marched his soldiers on board my ship, and two other Venetian craft lying in the harbour, and took possession of them, and shut us all up in prison.  There we were till Messer Polani got news, and sent out another ship to pay the fine demanded.  That was no joke, I can tell you, for the prison was so hot and crowded, and the food so bad, that we got fever, and pretty near half of us died before our ransom came.  Then at Constantinople the Genoese stirred the people up against us once or twice, and all the sailors ashore had to fight for their lives.  Those Genoese are always doing us mischief.”

“But I suppose you do them mischief sometimes, captain.  I imagine it isn’t all one side.”

“Of course, we pay them out when we get a chance,” the captain replied.  “It isn’t likely we are going to stand being always put upon, and not take our chance when it comes.  We only want fair trade and no favour, while those rascals want it all to themselves.  They know they have no chance with us when it comes to fair trading.”

“You know, captain, that the Genoese say just the same things about the Venetians, that the Venetians do about them.  So I expect that there are faults on both sides.”

The captain laughed.

“I suppose each want to have matters their own way, Messer Hammond, but I don’t consider the Genoese have any right to come interfering with us, to the eastward of Italy.  They have got France and Spain to trade with, and all the western parts of Italy.  Why don’t they keep there?  Besides, I look upon them as landsmen.  Why, we can always lick them at sea in a fair fight.”

“Generally, captain.  I admit you generally thrash them.  Still, you know they have sometimes got the better of you, even when the force was equal.”

The captain grunted.  He could not deny the fact.