hours, and after our captain and nearly all the crew of the ship had perished, at the end of nine assaults they made upon us, at the last they furiously boarded the ship. Though I should wish, yet I cannot exaggerate the grief that came to my soul when I saw that my beloved darlings whom now I have before me, must needs then be handed over to, and come into the power of those cruel butchers; and so, carried away by the wrath this fear and thought caused in me, I rushed with unarmed breast through the midst of the barbarous swords, desirous of dying from the cruelty of their edge, rather than to see with my eyes what I expected. But things came to pass differently from what I had feared, for, three stalwart Turks grappling with me, and I struggling with them, we all fell up confusedly against the door of the cabin where Nisida and Blanca were, and with the force of the blow the door was broken open, displaying the treasure that was there enclosed. The enemy lusting after it, one of them seized Nisida and the other Blanca; and I, seeing myself free from the two made the other who held me leave his life at my feet, and I thought to do the same with the two, had they not, warned of the danger, given up their hold of the two ladies and stretched me on the floor with two great wounds. Nisida, seeing this, threw herself upon my wounded body and with lamentable cries begged the two Turks to finish her. At this moment, drawn by the cries and laments of Nisida and Blanca, Arnaut, the general of the vessels, hurried up to the cabin, and, learning from the soldiers what was going on, had Nisida and Blanca carried to his galley, and at Nisida's prayer also gave orders for them to carry me thither, since I was not yet dead. In this manner, without my being conscious, they carried me to the enemy's flagship, where I was straightway tended with some diligence, for Nisida had told the captain that I was a man of rank and of great ransom, with the intention that, tempted by the bait of covetousness and of the money they might get from me, they should look after my health with somewhat more care. It happened then, that, as my wounds were being tended, I returned to consciousness with the pain of them, and turning my eyes in every direction, I knew I was in the power of my enemies, and in the enemy's vessel; but nothing touched my soul so much as to see at the stern of the galley Nisida and Blanca sitting at the feet of the dog of a general, shedding from their eyes countless tears, the tokens of the inward grief they were suffering. Neither the fear of the shameful death I was awaiting when you, good friend Silerio, in Catalonia freed me from it; neither the false tidings of Nisida's death, believed by me as true; neither the pain of my deadly wounds, nor any other affliction I might imagine, caused me, nor will cause more anguish than that which came to me at seeing Nisida and Blanca in the power of that barbarous unbeliever, where their honour was placed