Captain John Smith | Page 8

embarking on a man-of-
war. Once he was found in a forest near dead with grief and cold, and
rescued by a rich farmer; shortly afterwards, in a grove in Brittany, he
chanced upon one of the gallants who had robbed him, and the two out
swords and fell to cutting. Smith had the satisfaction of wounding the
rascal, and the inhabitants of a ruined tower near by, who witnessed the
combat, were quite satisfied with the event.
Our hero then sought out the Earl of Ployer, who had been brought up
in England during the French wars, by whom he was refurnished better
than ever. After this streak of luck, he roamed about France, viewing

the castles and strongholds, and at length embarked at Marseilles on a
ship for Italy. Rough weather coming on, the vessel anchored under the
lee of the little isle St. Mary, off Nice, in Savoy.
The passengers on board, among whom were many pilgrims bound for
Rome, regarded Smith as a Jonah, cursed him for a Huguenot, swore
that his nation were all pirates, railed against Queen Elizabeth, and
declared that they never should have fair weather so long as he was on
board. To end the dispute, they threw him into the sea. But God got
him ashore on the little island, whose only inhabitants were goats and a
few kine. The next day a couple of trading vessels anchored near, and
he was taken off and so kindly used that he decided to cast in his
fortune with them. Smith's discourse of his adventures so entertained
the master of one of the vessels, who is described as "this noble
Britaine, his neighbor, Captaine la Roche, of Saint Malo," that the
much-tossed wanderer was accepted as a friend. They sailed to the Gulf
of Turin, to Alessandria, where they discharged freight, then up to
Scanderoon, and coasting for some time among the Grecian islands,
evidently in search of more freight, they at length came round to
Cephalonia, and lay to for some days betwixt the isle of Corfu and the
Cape of Otranto. Here it presently appeared what sort of freight the
noble Britaine, Captain la Roche, was looking for.
An argosy of Venice hove in sight, and Captaine la Roche desired to
speak to her. The reply was so "untoward" that a man was slain,
whereupon the Britaine gave the argosy a broadside, and then his stem,
and then other broadsides. A lively fight ensued, in which the Britaine
lost fifteen men, and the argosy twenty, and then surrendered to save
herself from sinking. The noble Britaine and John Smith then
proceeded to rifle her. He says that "the Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of Gold,
and Tissue, Pyasters, Chiqueenes, and Suitanies, which is gold and
silver, they unloaded in four-and-twenty hours was wonderful, whereof
having sufficient, and tired with toils, they cast her off with her
company, with as much good merchandise as would have freighted
another Britaine, that was but two hundred Tunnes, she four or five
hundred." Smith's share of this booty was modest. When the ship
returned he was set ashore at "the Road of Antibo in Piamon," "with
five hundred chiqueenes [sequins] and a little box God sent him worth
neere as much more." He always devoutly acknowledged his

dependence upon divine Providence, and took willingly what God sent
him.

II
FIGHTING IN HUNGARY
Smith being thus "refurnished," made the tour of Italy, satisfied himself
with the rarities of Rome, where he saw Pope Clement the Eighth and
many cardinals creep up the holy stairs, and with the fair city of Naples
and the kingdom's nobility; and passing through the north he came into
Styria, to the Court of Archduke Ferdinand; and, introduced by an
Englishman and an Irish Jesuit to the notice of Baron Kisell, general of
artillery, he obtained employment, and went to Vienna with Colonel
Voldo, Earl of Meldritch, with whose regiment he was to serve.
He was now on the threshold of his long-desired campaign against the
Turks. The arrival on the scene of this young man, who was scarcely
out of his teens, was a shadow of disaster to the Turks. They had been
carrying all before them. Rudolph II., Emperor of Germany, was a
weak and irresolute character, and no match for the enterprising Sultan,
Mahomet III., who was then conducting the invasion of Europe. The
Emperor's brother, the Archduke Mathias, who was to succeed him,
and Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, also to become Emperor of Germany,
were much abler men, and maintained a good front against the
Moslems in Lower Hungary, but the Turks all the time steadily
advanced. They had long occupied Buda (Pesth), and had been in
possession of the stronghold of Alba Regalis for some sixty years.
Before Smith's advent