Summary

The narrator and protagonist of Faruk's version of the seventeenth-century manuscript is an Italian sailing from Venice to Naples, whose life is suddenly turned upside down when the ship he is on unexpectedly encounters a large Turkish fleet that had been hidden by dense fog. Unlike the other two Italian companion ships that immediately turned toward land, picked up speed, and escaped, the captain of the narrator's ship hesitated, fearing that if he gave the order to whip the mostly Turkish and Moorish oarsmen, he would be punished by the Turks, should he be captured. By the time the captain finally commanded his soldiers to beat the oarsmen to row faster, it was too late and the Turks captured them.

The narrator, who was then twenty-three years old, concluded that his captain's moment of cowardice had changed his entire life, and, until he began...