(This post is a continuation of The Odyssey of René du Chastelet des Boys – Parts 1& 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)
The ship upon which René du Chastelet des Boys has been traveling, remember, has just been boarded by Barbary corsairs.
As we stood on deck watching the corsairs draw near, we were overcome by a melancholic lethargy. There were some known sea adventurers among us, and some experienced sailors, but we were too overwrought to be able to give or receive advice. Our imaginations froze us with fear, persuading us that these brutally martial corsairs would, now that they had come aboard, sacrifice each and every of us to their scimitars.
In the grip of such fear, several of those on deck fled below, thinking to hide themselves down there and so stay alive. As I stood, uncertain what to do, a large Moor came towards me, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, brandishing a saber in one broad hand. I stayed frozen where I was, without speaking. The ugliness of his animated, charcoal face, his sharp yellow teeth, his two eyes like medallions of ivory flickering hideously, and the wide, shining steel blade terrorized me more than the flaming sword of the guardian of the Earthly Paradise had the first humans.
However, I was able to somewhat soften his fury by handing over a little blue leather purse that I had bought before my departure from La Rochelle, into which I had put what small change I had, having sunk, in imitation of the others, most of my ready money along with my good clothes when I tossed them overboard. The Moor then signaled me to stand aside, and he continued on in his quest to discover any riches hidden by my companions. I saw a young janissary, armed with a hatchet, force the Sieur de Molinville, my friend and confidant, to give up some monies he had been concealing upon his person. The Sieur de Cahaignes was searched and robbed by a renegade named Abdallah Maillorquin, who took the old book in the back of which he had, as I remarked above, hidden several gold coins. Sieur l’Anier was no happier, having fallen into the hands of a young coulougli named Kara Mourad who, having knocked him over, threatened him so direly that he fairly spewed coins at hm.
While the nobility were being stripped of their wealth, the ship’s officers and crew were also searched in their turn, and, like the passengers, gave up everything, including the keys to the storage chests, which delighted the more libertine and less miserly of these barbarians, for it gave them access to tobacco and liquor.
As for me, I lost everything. Some little time before, I had hastily concealed what small treasure I possessed belowdecks. But the corsair Admiral Braham Effendy, seeing that the captives had all been searched, now ordered that we be dispersed to the seven vessels that attended our capture. Thus I had no time to collect any my treasure or even hide it better.
The corsairs who had been first to board our ship, having now smashed in all the storage lockers, searched all the nooks and crannies, and gorged themselves with loot, were ordered by the Admiral to stay on board and to remove the ship’s anchors, sails, and ropes, and then to await further orders.
After all this upheaval, we were rowed across to the Admiral’s ship. The captain and the sailors appeared most distraught at having been forced to forsake their ship. The uselessness of our resistance produced in all of our minds a kind of helpless impassivity, and our misery was so extreme that when the wind picked up and threaten to capsize the boat we were in, we almost welcomed it.
Admiral Braham Effendy, before whom we were presented, wished to know all he could regarding our faculties, ages, professions, and status. Jacques Denyan, the ship’s captain, was brought before the corsair captain and thrown to the deck. He was then cruelly beaten on the soles of his feet to force him to reveal every detail about the ship’s cargo. The captain handled himself well, declaring that there is nothing aboard the ship except wheat, and that he could prove that by showing the ship’s cargo manifest. Two French renegades, one from Marseille, the other from Calais, jointly examined the manifest and agreed that it made mention of nothing but wheat.
Nevertheless, the Admiral commanded that the captain to be beaten again. The captain cursed and loudly protested that he knew of no other cargo. They pressed him hard then concerning the faculties and professions of those aboard his ship. He declared abundantly that he only had sailors and passengers on board, and that he knew neither the destiny nor the professions of his passengers, nor their degree of wealth, having learned nothing about them except that they were going to serve the new king of Portugal, and that they had simply paid him for their passage and their food.
The constancy of our captain saved him from further maltreatment. His first mate, however, acquitted himself less well. This poor man trembled at the first hint of brutality and, without further pressing, confessed that, in addition to the wheat listed in the ship’s cargo manifest, there were four small bundles of fine hardware hidden in the hold, as well as three bags containing a thousand pieces-of-eight each, hidden at the bottom of the hold near one of the bilge pumps. Regarding the passengers, he confessed that he had no knowledge of them, but that he had seen one—and here he glanced at Lord Arthur Pens—dressed in embroidered silk and scarlet brocade while on shore.
The first mate’s perfidious confession gave birth in a single instant to a thousand suspicions, and as many hopes of rich booty, in the minds of the pirates. They dragged the unfortunate Arthur Pens forward and pressed their interrogations by threatening to lash the soles of his feet with a length of well tarred rope, an instrument which they habitually use when questioning new captives. The poor man, terrified by such treatment, fully confessed to everything he could possibly think of, declaring, sometimes in Italian, sometimes in German, all his plans concerning his departure and return. He told then also of how what little money he had left had been taken from him by one of the corsairs upon boarding, though he could not identify which one. The fear tightening his heart also induced him to confess that he had borrowed some money from one of his French comrades. When pressed to tell who it was, he finally pointed at me.
This confession made me extremely nervous, since I feared that the corsairs would think me to be a wealthy man. The corsair captain commanded me to approach and considered me, and then ordered that I be questioned. I claimed that I was a simple adventurer seeking employment in the king of Portugal’s new wars, and that what little money I had left had been taken from me by a great black corsair, whom I pointed out—the animated, ebony colossus with the yellow teeth and ivory eyes, whom I have already mentioned.
The corsair captain wanted to know more, and he was suspicious that the negro had taken from me a notable sum, so he had the man questioned very roughly about the quantity of money he had taken from me. The Moor insisted he had taken nothing. As a result, he was caned severely, a punishment he endured stoically without further confession.
Once all this had transpired, our unfortunate ship was stripped of its sails, anchors, and guns, and everything else that the corsairs needed and wanted, and it was then set adrift at the mercy of the winds, taking with it the little fortune of coins I had hidden, which the corsairs had not discovered. It was, it seemed, my destiny to have everything taken from me.
After this, the corsairs raised sail and set off, with a good wind at their backs.
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For the next installment of René du Chastelet des Boys’ adventures, see The Odyssey of René du Chastelet des Boys – Part 3.
For those who may be interested…
The above (abridged) excerpt comes from des Boys’ L’Odyssée ou diversité d’aventures, rencontres et voyages en Europe, Asie et Affrique, pp. 14 – 18.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
Amazon listing