Since his departure from Malta, where he had joined his brother with ten captives that he had carried back to La Ciotat, he had observed a Moorish slave about forty years old, whose countenance betrayed an incurable sorrow.
No man of the crew fulfilled his painful task with more courage or more resignation. But as soon as the hour of rest arrived, the Moor crossed his vigorous arms, bowed his head on his breast, and thus passed the hours in which his comrades tried to forget their captivity, in gloomy silence.
The captain of the mast on the galley, knowing the interest that this gentle and peaceable captive inspired in Father Elzear, approached the priest, and told him the Moor was about to suffer the usual punishment for insubordination.
That morning, this Moor, plunged in his profound and habitual reverie, had not responded to the commands of the overseer.
The officer reprimanded him sharply, and still the Moor sat in gloomy silence.
Incensed by this indifference, which he construed into an insult or a refusal to submit to service, the overseer struck him over the shoulders with the cowhide.
The Moor jumped up, uttered a savage roar, and threw himself on the overseer to the full length of his chain, throwing him down in the violence of his rage, and, but for several sailors and soldiers, would have strangled him.
The captive who raised his hand against one of the officers of the galley was subjected to terrible punishment.
He was to be stretched half naked on one of the largest cannon in the rambade, called the chase-gun, and two men, armed with sharp thongs, were to lash him until he lost consciousness.
This sentence had been pronounced that morning on the Moor by the commander. Knowing the inflexible character of his brother, Elzear did not think of asking mercy for the offender; he only desired to soften the cruelty of the sentence by informing the captive himself.