A launch thronged with Moors and Arabs, armed with pistols, scimeters, pikes and spears, put out from the side of the zebec. They fired several volleys that came dangerously close to the heads of the American sailors, and threatened to slaughter the crew if they resisted.
Captain Stephens, when a pistol was held against his breast, surrendered his ship. He and his crew were transferred to the corsair, first having been stripped of all their clothes except their undergarments. They were pricked and prodded until they reached the forepart of the Algerine ship, where the commander, Rais Ibrahim, a vicious-looking old Moor, who kept his hand on the pistol that protruded from his sash as if his fingers itched to fire a bullet into a Christian's body, repeated the threat of massacre if the captives disobeyed his orders.
Captain Stephens, who spoke Spanish, went as far as was safe in protesting against the seizure.
Rais Ibrahim, crying upon Allah to wipe out all Christians, replied that the ships of Barbary were no longer limited by the Mediterranean Sea. He declared that Algiers had made a peace with her ancient enemy Spain and was free now to send her vessels through the Strait into the Atlantic.
"Have you papers," he sneered, "showing that your country is paying tribute to the Dey of Algiers? If your government has not purchased immunity from attack by our corsairs, do not protest to me against your capture, but rather blame your rulers for neglecting to follow the wise example of the nations of Europe, who pay my lord the gold that he demands!"
A Moslem crew was placed aboard the Marie, and she was sailed as a prize into Algiers. There the prisoners found in captivity the crew of the American ship Dauphin, under Captain Richard O'Brien, who, with his mate, Andrew Montgomery, and five seamen, had been captured by an Algerine corsair near Lisbon.
To announce to the city that he was approaching with a prize the Moslem captain fired gun after gun. The Port Admiral came out in a launch to examine the prize and prisoners so that he might make a report to the Dey; the people on shore gathered at the wharves to gloat over the new wealth that had come to the city; the barrooms became crowded with revelers; everyone except the slaves rejoiced.
The captors were received by their relatives and friends on shore with cheers and exultation. Estimates of the value of the prisoners and the ship passed from one to another. The captives were given filthy rags to cover their nakedness, and were marched through the streets between rows of jeering infidels. Their destination was the palace of the Dey. They were driven across the courtyard of the palace, where they entered a hall. They then were pushed and prodded by their guards up five flights of stairs, where they went through a narrow, dark entrance into the Dey's audience room.
He sat, a dark, fat, greasy creature, upon a low bench that was covered with cushions of embroidered velvet.
He viewed the Americans with great resentment.