Corsair by Tim Severin

in the days of Queen Bess we got our petre from Barbary and it was made into the cannon powder that stopped the Great Armada. So I thought I would find petre here in Algiers, and add brimstone from Sicily because everyone knows that you find yellow brimstone near volcanoes. But as it turned out, I never found the petre and the Sicilian brimstone was poor stuff, full of impurities. So I had to go round the local pigeon lofts, just like my great-grandfather, and collect up the droppings. In the end it wasn’t worth it. I could make serpentine but not the corned powder that the Turks wanted for their cannon and muskets.’
    ‘I don’t know the difference,’ Hector said deferentially. He felt that if he was to work safely with Buckley, he should learn everything that the technician was willing to tell him.
    ‘There’s a world of difference. Serpentine is what we made at home, basic gunpowder if you like. It’s all right if you keep it dry and mix it well. But it’s unreliable. It was a charge of serpentine, exploding late, which near cost me my right arm the other day. Corned powder is mill-made, and shaken through sieves so it is graded nice and regular. Small grains for muskets and pistols, larger grains for the big guns. There’s no one making corned powder in all the lands of the Grand Turk, as far as I know. Certainly not here in Algiers. Anyone who managed to do so, would command his own price.’
    ‘Talking about price,’ Hector ventured, ‘if it’s true that there’s someone coming from London to buy back captives, what sort of price will he be paying?’
    Buckley gave the young man a sympathetic glance. ‘Whatever his budget allows. And then only if he is an honest man. There are a lot of sticky fingers when it comes to handling ransoms.’

    W ORK AT THE quarry finished an hour before sunset, and as soon as he was free to do so, Hector hurried back to the bagnio, eager to find Dan. He was looking forward to telling him about the expected envoy from London and that they were soon to be ransomed. From his first day in the bagnio when Dan had rescued him from the lecherous kaporal, Hector had found himself increasingly grateful to his fellow captive. The Miskito had continued to share with him the vegetables he stole from his gardening, and had coached the young Irishman in the ways of the bagnio. Without that knowledge Hector doubted he would have survived.
    Hector could not see his friend in the bagnio courtyard, so he went up to their dormitory to see if perhaps Dan had gone there. But without success. Wondering what had detained Dan, Hector was halfway back down the stairway when he noticed two Turkish guards enter the courtyard through the arched passage leading to the main gate. They were carrying a prisoner between them. Hector stopped short. The man hanging between the two guards was Dan, and his legs were trailing limply on the ground. Hector knew at once what had happened. He raced down the stair and across the courtyard, arriving just at the moment the two guards dropped their burden and Dan collapsed on the ground, face down. ‘Dan!’ he cried anxiously, ‘try to get up on your knees, and put one arm over my shoulder. I’ll lift you.’
    Hearing Hector’s voice, Dan raised his head and gave a grimace of pain. ‘Usanza and fantasia,’ he muttered. ‘I forgot my own advice.’ Then, his face contorted with the effort, the Miskito half-rose and clung to his friend so that Hector was able to assist him slowly and carefully up to the dormitory where he laid Dan gently on his bunk.
    The normally phlegmatic Miskito groaned as he stretched out his legs.
    ‘Was it bad?’ asked Hector.
    ‘Forty blows. But it could have been worse. Might have been fifty or more. The aga di baston was that pervert, Emilio’s friend. He laid on specially hard for what I did to his crony.’
    ‘How did it happen?’
    ‘It was stupid of me. I was working in the masserie when a Turkish guard discovered a local woman