And When We Came To The Place Where We Saw The
Carmosel, We Were Not Suffered To Have Neither Needle, Bodkin, Knife,
Or Any Other Instrument About Us, Nor At Any Other Time In The Night,
Upon Pain Of One Hundred Bastinadoes:
We were then also cruelly
manacled, in such sort that we could not put our hands the length of
one foot asunder the one from the other, and every night they searched
our chains three times, to see if they were fast riveted.
We continued
the fight with the carmosel three hours, and then we took it, and lost
but two of our men in that fight; but there were slain of the Greeks
five, and fourteen were cruelly hurt; and they that were found were
presently made slaves, and chained to the oars, and within fifteen days
after we returned again into Tripolis, and then we were put to all
manner of slavery. I was put to hew stones, and other to carry stones,
and some to draw the cart with earth, and some to make mortar, and some
to draw stones (for at that time the Turks builded a church), and thus
we were put to all kinds of slavery that was to be done. And in the
time of our being there the Moors, that are the husbandmen of the
country, rebelled against the king, because he would have constrained
them to pay greater tribute than heretofore they had done, so that the
soldiers of Tripolis marched forth of the town, to have joined battle
against the Moors for their rebellion, and the king sent with them four
pieces of ordnance, which were drawn by the captives twenty miles into
the country after them, and at the sight thereof the Moors fled, and
then the captains returned back again. Then I, and certain Christians
more, were sent twelve miles into the country with a cart to load
timber, and we returned again the same day.
Now, the king had eighteen captives, which three times a week went to
fetch wood thirty miles from the town, and on a time he appointed me
for one of the eighteen, and we departed at eight of the clock in the
night; and upon the way, as we rode upon the camels, I demanded of one
of our company who did direct us the way: he said that there was a
Moor in our company which was our guide; and I demanded of them how
Tripolis and the wood bare one off the other, and he said, "East-north-
east and west-south-west." And at midnight, or thereabouts, as I was
riding upon my camel, I fell asleep, and the guide and all the rest
rode away from me, not thinking but I had been among them. When I
awoke, and, finding myself alone, I durst not call nor holloa, for fear
lest the wild Moors should hear me - because they hold this opinion,
that in killing a Christian they do God good service - and musing with
myself what were best for me to do:
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