"After nearly two months of travelling, having passed many towns and villages on the way, we came one morning to a place on the river where we halted; and away in the desert I could see three great buildings, broad and square at the bottom, rising to a great height, and terminating in a point. I asked about them of our captors, and they told me that they were tombs of ancient kings of Egypt, and of great age. "Leaving these, we went on again, and in course of time came to the city of Alexandria, where our journey ended. We stayed there several weeks, and then I--being by this time recovered from my sickness,--with the other six men, was sold to the captain of a corsair galley, who wanted a few more slaves to make up his complement of rowers. "And now began the worst years of my life. For six long years, my masters, I sweated in a hot sun, with no shelter; toiling at the great heavy sweeps with the other slaves; always kept to our work by the whip of the bo'sun. Ah, the torment of those years! The recollection of them would never leave me, were I to live to the age of the patriarchs of old. We pursued other craft--mostly merchantmen--and took them; and those of the slaves who were killed by the shot of the other ships were replaced by their crews. "Many a time did I pray that I should be one of those to find death; but it never came to me, though often enough to the men by my side. At last, one day we attacked a Spanish vessel--for we had gone down towards the Straits of Jebel-al-Tarik--that looked like a harmless merchant-ship, but she proved to be a war-ship disguised on purpose to take us, and others like us. After more than an hour's fighting, during which nearly all our men were killed, she took us; and I, with the other Englishmen on board the galley, gave thanks to God, for we foolishly thought that all our troubles were now over. But we were soon to find out our mistake. There was now war between England and Spain, and we quickly discovered that we had merely made an exchange of masters. "We were taken on board the Spaniard and the galley was sunk. Her owners were all hanged, being heathens, but we Englishmen were considered heretics, and we were to be reserved for the Holy Inquisition, that that office might convert us from our sins, and `save us from everlasting flame', as the Spanish Dons put it. We were landed at Cartagena, in Spain, and I, with eight others, was thrown into prison, to await my trial at the hands of the Holy Office. One by one we were tried, and all found guilty of `heresy'. Then they asked if we would recant. We all refused, with the natural result that we were put to the torture. Oh, my masters, pray daily and nightly that you may never fall into the hands of the Holy Inquisition! Those years that I spent on the galley were as heaven compared to being in the hands of the Dons.