' I
trembled from head to foot at hearing her talk in this manner, and
exerted what little strength I had left to cry out, 'Have mercy on
me!' At length the Portuguese barber took courage, sewed up my
wound, and his wife nursed me; and I was upon my legs in a fortnight's
time. The barber got me a place to be lackey to a Knight of Malta, who
was going to Venice; but finding my master had no money to pay me my
wages, I entered into the service of a Venetian merchant and went with
him to Constantinople.
"One day I happened to enter a mosque, where I saw no one but an old
man and a very pretty young female devotee, who was telling her beads;
her neck was quite bare, and in her bosom she had a beautiful
nosegay of tulips, roses, anemones, ranunculuses, hyacinths, and
auriculas; she let fall her nosegay. I ran immediately to take it
up, and presented it to her with a most respectful bow. I was so
long in delivering it that the man began to be angry; and,
perceiving I was a Christian, he cried out for help; they carried me
before the cadi, who ordered me to receive one hundred bastinadoes,
and sent me to the galleys. I was chained in the very galley and to
the very same bench with the Baron. On board this galley there were
four young men belonging to Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and
two monks of Corfu, who told us that the like adventures happened
every day.
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