Not a few wore on their cheeks the ghastly red fleur-de-lis, which he now knew for the mark of deserters, murderers, and the more flagrant criminals; others, he learned, were condemned for the pettiest thefts, and a large proportion for having no better taste than to belong to the Protestant religion.

The man beside him, for instance, was a poor Huguenot from Perigord, who had been caught on the frontier in the act of escaping to a country in which he had a slightly better chance of calling his soul his own.

All these were white men; but at the end of each bench, next the gangway, sat a Turk or Moor.

These were bought slaves, procured expressly to manage the stroke of the oar, and for their skill treated somewhat better than the Christians.

They earned the same pay as the soldiers, and were not chained, like other slaves, to the benches, but carried only a ring on the foot as a badge of servitude.