From the same authority I draw another narrative of singular success in achieving freedom. Several Englishmen, being captured and carried into Algiers, were sold as slaves. These are the words of one of their number: "_We were hurried like dogs into the market, where, as men sell hacknies in England, we were tossed up and down to see who would give most for us; and although we had heavy hearts, and looked with sad countenances, yet many came to behold us, sometimes taking us by the hand, sometimes turning us round about, sometimes feeling our brawny and naked armes, and so beholding our prices written in our breasts, they bargained for us accordingly, and at last we were all sold._" Shortly afterwards several were put on board an Algerine corsair to serve as slaves. One of them, John Rawlins, who resembled Cervantes in the hardihood of his exertions for freedom,--as, like him, he had lost the use of an arm,--arranged a rising or insurrection on board. "O hellish slavery," he said, "to be thus subject to dogs! O God! strengthen my heart and hand, and something shall be done to ease us of these mischiefs, and deliver us from these cruel Mohammedan dogs. What can be worse? I will either attempt my deliverance at one time or another, or perish in the enterprise." An auspicious moment was seized; and eight English slaves and one French, with the assistance of four Hollanders, freemen, succeeded, after a bloody contest, in overpowering fifty-two Turks. "When all was done," the story proceeds, "and the ship cleared of the dead bodies, Rawlins assembled his men together, and with one consent gave the praise unto God, using the accustomed service on shipboard, and, for want of books, lifted up their voices to God, as he put into their hearts or renewed their memories; then did they sing a psalm, and, last of all, embraced one another for playing the men in such a deliverance, whereby our fear was turned into joy, and trembling hearts exhilarated that we had escaped such inevitable dangers, and especially the slavery and terror of bondage worse than death itself. The same night we washed our ship, put every thing in as good order as we could, repaired the broken quarter, set up the biticle, and bore up the helme for England, where, by God's grace and good guiding, we arrived at Plimouth, February 17th, 1622."[73] [Footnote 73: Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. ii. pp. 889-896.] [Illustration]