Page:Omniana.djvu/81

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OMNIANA.
63

whose charge it was to provide one, sent his slave with her child into the seraglio, where she stayed nearly two years. Ibrahim unluckily grew fonder of this child than of his own, which made the Sultana mortally hate mother and child, and the Kislar Aga also; he, in consequence, began to fear for his life, obtained leave to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and embarked for Alexandria with the Russian and the child in 1644. On the way they fell in with six Maltese gallies; the Turkish fleet consisted of eight vessels; an obstinate battle ensued; the Aga was killed, and the ship in which he was, taken. Sciabes, as the Russian was called, died during the action "of very fright and apprehension." The Maltese boarding their prize, and seeing so many women and eunuchs, asked whom they belonged to, "and what pretty child that was,..the distracted people, partly out of terror, and haply upon hope of better quarter, tell them that he was the son of