But though a duly invested Bashaw of Three Tails, I was not fated to remain long in that Capacity. For once, however, my Destiny, in subjecting me to Change, played me a kind instead of a spiteful Turn. Going to visit the French Ambassador, who was then in high favour at the Porte, I found there, living under the protection of his Family, a Lady, who was no other than my dear Wife Lilias, and with her a Daughter, called after her own name, who was now twelve years of age. Her History, as she related it to me, was brief, but amazing. Both her Father and the Cardinal died about two years after her return from Captivity; but she found a new guardian in my old friend Captain Night, or Don Ercolo Sparafucile di San Lorenzo, the Knight of Malta, who had retired from that Island to end his days in France. She was enabled to cheer the declining years of that Gallant Gentleman, who had preserved a lively remembrance of his old _Protege_, Jack Dangerous; and when he died, he left her the whole of his large fortune. All these years she had remained in a dreadful state of uncertainty, till, through the kind offices of the French Minister of Police, she was made acquainted with the last dying avowal of a Pirate Renegado, named Sparkenhoe, who had expired at the Galleys of Marseille, and stated that, in the year 1759, he had conveyed a refugee Christian Slave from Algiers to Constantinople, where he had been sold to a Merchant of Damascus. In the almost desperate hope of discovering some Tidings of me, my Wife and Child had journeyed to the Porte, where they were most kindly received at the French Embassy. They had given up almost every prospect of meeting me again, when I made my sudden appearance in the strange Guise of a Turkish Bashaw.