After sixteen days’ riding, without encountering a mishap, Smith arrived safely at a Muscovite settlement on the Don where he was warmly received. The galling badge of bondage was filed from his neck and he felt then, but not before, once more a free man. His wants were supplied and he was furnished with sufficient money to enable him to continue his journey in comfort. He proceeded into Transylvania where his old comrades welcomed him as one from the grave, having lamented him as among the dead at Rothenthrum. The Earl of Meldritch was delighted to meet his old captain and “Master of Stratagem” once more and regretted that the existing state of peace prevented their fighting together again. That condition determined our hero to seek service in Africa where he heard that a war was in progress. Before his departure, Prince Sigismund presented him with fifteen hundred ducats, and so he set out with a well-filled purse and a light heart. Captain Smith journeyed to Barbary in company with a French adventurer who, like himself, cared little where he went so that the excursion held out a prospect of fighting and new experiences. On this occasion, however, they were disappointed in their hope of military service. They found the conditions such as they were not willing to become involved in. The Sultan of Barbary had been poisoned by his wife, and two of his sons, neither of whom had a right to the succession, were contending for the throne. Our adventurers considered this state of things more akin to murder than to war and declined to take any part in it, although they might without doubt have enriched themselves by doing so. Upon his return to the port of Saffi, Captain Smith found a British privateering vessel in the harbor under the command of a Captain Merham. An acquaintance sprang up between the two which quickly ripened into friendship. One evening, Smith with some other guests was paying a visit to the privateer, when a cyclone suddenly swept down upon them. Captain Merham barely had time to slip his cable before the hurricane struck his ship and drove it out to sea. All night they ran before the wind, and when at length the storm had ceased they were in the vicinity of the Canaries. The Captain wished to “try some conclusions,” after the manner of Captain La Roche on a former occasion, before returning to port. His guests were not averse to the proposal and so he hung about to see what vessels chance might throw in their way.