“Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and no less surprised at the young man’s words, I told him that there were far greater misfortunes in the world than what he complained of. And to convince him of it, I gave him a short history of the horrible disasters that had befallen me; and again fell into a swoon. He carried me in his arms to a neighbouring cottage, where he had me put to bed, procured me something to eat, waited on me, comforted me, caressed me, told me that he had never seen anything so perfectly beautiful as myself, and that he had never so much regretted the loss of what no one could restore to him.

“ ‘I was born at Naples,’ said he, ‘where they caponize two or three thousand children every year: several die of the operation; some acquire voices far beyond the most tuneful of your ladies; and others are sent to govern states and empires. I underwent this operation very happily, and was one of the singers in the Princess of Palestrina’s chapel.’

“ ‘How,’ cried I, ‘in my mother’s chapel!’

“ ‘The Princess of Palestrina, your mother!’ cried he, bursting into a flood of tears, ‘is it possible you should be the beautiful young princess whom I had the care of bringing up till she was six years old, and who, at that tender age, promised to be as fair as I now behold you?’

“ ‘I am the same,’ I replied. ‘My mother lies about a hundred yards from here, cut in pieces, and buried under a heap of dead bodies.’

“I then related to him all that had befallen me, and he in return acquainted me with all his adventures, and how he had been sent to the court of the King of Morocco by a Christian prince to conclude a treaty with that monarch; in consequence of which he was to be furnished with military stores, and ships to enable him to destroy the commerce of other Christian governments.

“ ‘I have executed my commission,’ said the eunuch; ‘I am going to take shipping at Ceuta, and I’ll take you along with me to Italy. Ma che sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!’

“I thanked him with tears of joy; but, instead of taking me with him into Italy, he carried me to Algiers, and sold me to the dey of that province. I had not been long a slave when the plague, which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out at Algiers with redoubled fury. You have seen an earthquake; but tell me, miss, had you ever the plague?”

“Never,” answered the young Baroness.

“If you ever had,” continued the old woman, “you would own an earthquake was a trifle to it. It is very common in Africa; I was seized with it. Figure to yourself the situation of the daughter of a pope, only fifteen years old, and who in less than three months had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery; had been ravished almost every day; had beheld her mother cut into four quarters; had experienced the scourges of famine and war, and was now dying of the plague at Algiers. I did not, however, die of it; but my eunuch, and the dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers, were swept off.

“As soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence was over, a sale was made of the dey’s slaves. I was purchased by a merchant, who carried me to Tunis. This man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. After many changes, I at length became the property of an aga of the janissaries, who, soon after I came into his possession, was ordered away to the defence of Azov, then besieged by the Russians.

“The aga being fond of women, took his whole seraglio with him, and lodged us in a small fort on Lake Maeotis, with two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers for our guard. Our army made a great slaughter among the Russians, but they soon returned us the compliment. Azov was taken by storm, and the enemy spared neither age nor sex, but put all to the sword, and laid the city in ashes. Our little fort alone held out; they resolved to reduce us by famine. The twenty janissaries had bound themselves by an oath never to surrender the place. Being reduced to the extremity of famine, they found themselves obliged to eat two eunuchs rather than violate their oath. After a few days they determined to devour the women.