And the same man related the unhappy experience of a Venetian and seventeen captives who, after enduring slavery for some time at the hands of the Sultan of Tripoli, succeeded in getting a boat and got right away to sea. Away they sped to the northward, and at length they sighted Malta. Their hopes ran high: their confidence was now undoubted. On they came, nearer and nearer to the land, and now they were within only a mile of the shore. It was beautifully fine weather, and one of them remarked, “_In dispetto de Dio adesso venio a pittiar terra_”—“In the despite of God I shall now fetch the shoare.” But the man had spoken with an excess of confidence. For presently a violent storm sprang up, so that they were forced to up-helm and to run right before the gale, which was now blowing right on to the Tripolitan coast. Arrived off there they were heart-broken to find that they were compelled to row up and down the very coastline which they had imagined they had escaped from. For three weeks they held out as best they could, but the weather being absolutely against them, and their slender victuals being at length exhausted, they were compelled to come ashore, hoping to be able to steal some sheep. The Barbarian Moores, however, were on the watch and knew that these unlucky men would be bound to land for supplies. Therefore a band of sixty horsemen were dispatched who secreted themselves behind a sandhill near the sea. There they waited till the Christians had got well inland a good half mile. Then, by a smart movement, the horsemen cut off all retreat to the sea, whilst others pursued the starving voyagers and soon came back with them. They were brought back to the place whence they had so recently escaped. The Sultan ordered that the fugitives should, some of them, have their ears cut off, whilst others were most cruelly thrashed. [Illustration: BLIGHTED HOPES The seamen had escaped from Tripoli and were within sight of Malta when a violent storm drove them back to the Moorish coast. Compelled by hunger to land, they were cut off by a party of horsemen, and again thrown into captivity to be most barbarously treated.]