It was all one; neither the priest nor any one else could prevail with him,
but that I was not his servant but his slave, that he took me in the
Algerine, and that I was a Turk, only pretended to be an English boy to get
my liberty, and he would carry me to the Inquisition as a Turk.

This frighted me out of my wits, for I had nobody to vouch for me what I
was, or from whence I came; but the good Padre Antonio, for that was his
name, cleared me of that part by a way I did not understand; for he came to
me one morning with two sailors, and told me they must search me, to bear
witness that I was not a Turk. I was amazed at them, and frighted, and did
not understand them, nor could I imagine what they intended to do to me.
However, stripping me, they were soon satisfied, and Father Antony bade me
be easy, for they could all witness that I was no Turk. So I escaped that
part of my master's cruelty.

And now I resolved from that time to run away from him if I could, but
there was no doing of it there, for there were not ships of any nation in
the world in that port, except two or three Persian vessels from Ormus, so
that if I had offered to go away from him, he would have had me seized on
shore, and brought on board by force; so that I had no remedy but patience.
And this he brought to an end too as soon as he could, for after this he
began to use me ill, and not only to straiten my provisions, but to beat
and torture me in a barbarous manner for every trifle, so that, in a word,
my life began to be very miserable.

The violence of this usage of me, and the impossibility of my escape from
his hands, set my head a-working upon all sorts of mischief, and in
particular I resolved, after studying all other ways to deliver myself, and
finding all ineffectual, I say, I resolved to murder him. With this hellish