The Pirate City, page 229 by Robert Michael Ballantyne
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he made it in the shape o' a cross, an' whin the Dey found that out he chopped the poor man's head off--so he did, worse luck! but it's that they're always doin', or stranglin' ye wid a bow-string, or makin' calf's-futt jelly o' yer soles.--What! `Ye don't belave it?' Faix, if ye go ashore ye'll larn to belave it. I've seed poor owld women git the bastinado--that's what they calls it--for nothin' at all a'most. Ah, they're awful hard on the women. They kape 'em locked up, they does, as if they was thieves or murderers, and niver lets 'em out--at least the ladies among 'em--for fear o' their bein' runned away wid. It's true what I'm sayin'. An' if wan shud be runned away wid, an' cotched, they ties her in a sack and drowns her.-- Good-lookin', is it? Faix, that's more than I can tell 'ee, for all the time I've been in the place I've never wance seed a Moorish woman's face, barrin' the brow an' eyes and top o' the nose, for they cover 'em up wid white veils, so as to make 'em look like ghosts or walkin' corpses. But the Jewesses show their purty faces, an' so do the naigresses.--`are the naigresses purty?' Troth, they may be to their own kith an' kin, but of all the ugly--Well, well, as you say, it's not fair to be hard on 'em, poor critters; for arter all they didn't make theirselves, no more than the monkeys did."
Ted Flaggan was interrupted here by the sudden exclamation of "There she is!" and the next moment the boat with the flag of truce was seen returning with the signal flying--"No answer."
Instantly Lord Exmouth signalled to the fleet, "Are you ready?" to which an affirmative reply was at once returned, and then each ship and boat bore down on its appointed station.
We have already said that the harbour of Algiers was formed by the running out of an artificial pier from the mainland to the small island of Penon, which lies close to the town. On this island stood, (and still stands), a light-house, at the base of which was a powerful three-tier battery of fifty guns. The island itself