"What o' the Barbary rovers, then! They lack slaves and are ever ready to trade, though they be niggardly payers.

I never heard of none that returned once they had him safe aboard their galleys.

I ha' done some trading with them, bartering human freights for spices and eastern carpets and the like." Master Lionel breathed hard.

"'Tis a horrible fate, is't not ?" The captain stroked his beard.

"Yet 'tis the only really safe bestowal, and when all is said 'tis not so horrible as hanging, and certainly less dishonouring to a man's kin.