The day after the execution of the sentence on the Moor, the north wind was blowing with increasing violence.

The waves hurled themselves with fury against the girdle of rocks through which opened the narrow passage which led into the road of Tolari.

About eleven o’clock in the morning, Captain Simon, mounted on the platform of the rambade, was talking with Captain Hugues about the punishment which occurred the day before, and of the courage of the Moor.

Suddenly they saw a polacre, her sails almost torn away, flying before the tempest with the rapidity of an arrow, and about to enter the dangerous pass of which we have spoken.

Sometimes the frail vessel, rising on the crest of the towering waves, would show the edge of her keel running with foam like the breast of a race-horse.

Again, sinking in the hollow of the waves, she would plunge with such violence that her stem would be almost perpendicular.

Soon they could distinguish on the deluged deck two men enveloped in brown mantles with hoods, who were employing every possible effort to hold the whip-staff of the rudder.

Five other sailors, squatting at the prow, or holding on to the rigging, awaited the moment to aid in the manoeuvre.

So, by turns carried to the top of the waves and plunged in their depths, the polacre was hastening with frightful speed to tie narrow entrance of the channel, where the waves were dashing with fury.

“By St Elmo!” cried Captain Simon, “there’s a ship gone to destruction!”

“She is lost,” replied Hugues, coldly; “in a few minutes her rigging and hull will be nothing but a wreck, and her sailors will be corpses. May the Lord save the souls of our brothers!”

“Why did he dare venture in this passage at such a time?” said the gunner.

“If a man is to be shipwrecked it is better to perish with a feeble hope. When a man hopes, he prays, and dies a Christian; when he despairs, he blasphemes, and dies a pagan.

“Look, look, Simon, there is the little boat going into the breakers; it is all up with her!”

At that moment the commander, who had been informed of the approach of the vessel and of her desperate condition, appeared on deck with all the chevaliers, officers, and others who manned the galley.

After carefully examining the polacre and the breakers, Pierre des Anbiez called out, in a loud and solemn voice:

“Let the two long-boats be ready and equipped to gather the corpses on the beach: no human power can save this unfortunate ship. Only God can help her.” While the overseers superintended the execution of this order, the commander, turning to the chaplain, said:

“My brother, let us say the prayers for the dying, for these unfortunate men. Brothers, on your knees. Let the crew uncover.”

It was a grand and imposing spectacle.

All the chevaliers, clothed in black, were kneeling bareheaded on the deck; the bell for prayer dolefully tolled a funeral knell amid the wild shrieks of the tempest.

The slaves were also on their knees and uncovered.

In the rear, in the middle of a group of chevaliers dressed in black, Father Elzear in his white cassock could be distinguished.

Prayers for the dying were said with as much solemnity as if they were being recited in a church on land, or in a cloister.

It was not a mere form; these monk-soldiers were sad and contemplative. As sailors they saw a vessel without hope; as Christians they prayed for the souls of their brothers. In fact the polacre seemed in danger of going down every moment. The furious waves, rushing into the channel on their way to the sea, broke the current and whirled and tossed in every direction. Her sails, by which she might have made steady headway, were blown under the enormous rocks; her rudder was useless, and she was at the mercy of the wind and waters which rushed back and forth in unabating rage.

The prayers and chants continued without cessation.

Above all the other voices could be heard the manly, sonorous voice of the commander. The slaves on their knees looked in sullen apathy on this desperate struggle of man against the elements.

Suddenly, by an unhoped-for chance, either because the polacre was of such perfect construction, or because she responded finally to the action of her rudder, or because the little triangular sail that she hoisted caught some current of the upper air, the gallant little vessel steadied herself, resumed her headway, and cleared the dangerous passage with the rapidity and lightness of a sea-gull.

A few minutes after she was out of danger, calmly sailing the waters of the road.

This manoeuvre was so unforeseen, so wonderful, and so well executed, that for a moment astonishment suspended the prayers of the chevaliers.

The commander, amazed, said to the officers, after a few moments of breathless silence:

“My brothers, let us thank the Lord for having heard our prayers, and let us sing a song of thanksgiving.”

While the galley resounded with this pious and solemn invocation, the polacre, The Holy Terror to the Moors, for it was she, was beating about in the road with very little sail, in order to approach the black galley.

She was but a little distance from her when a cannon-shot, sent from the rambade of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, signalled her to hoist her flag and lie to.

A second cannon-shot ordered her to send her captain on board the black galley. Whatever inte............