Then ensued a hot engagement, during which Selim remained below for some time, consoling and encouraging his lady-love until the issue became doubtful, when he felt impelled to take the Frenchman's part.
"Pretending to Zaida we were victorious, I sprang upon the deck, and, observing that the English endeavoured to board us ahead, I slew the first who attempted our deck, and, beckoning to the French to follow me, leapt on board the enemy's ship, unseconded by any excepting my Swedish fellow-captive, who, seeing me overpowered, leapt back and regained his ship. Thus was I made a prisoner, and my fair Moor left a prey to all the wretchedness of despair. After several vain attempts to board each other, the two ships parted; the French steered towards France, and I was carried into Malta. The good captain, whose prisoner I was, observing my despondence, ordered me to be set free, though I had killed one of his men; and when I informed him of my unhappy story, and my resolutions to go in quest of Zaida, he gave me 100 guineas, and advised me to sail for England; 'where, though I am unhappily exiled from it, said he, 'you will be generously treated, and will hear the fate of the French privateer.'"
Selim took this sound advice, backed by such a generous donation, and, after a two months' voyage, arrived in England, where the first thing he saw was the identical vessel in which his Zaida had been borne away from him: she had been captured and sent home.
The officer in charge lent a sympathetic ear to Selim's tale of woe, and, after some fruitless inquiries, "We landed at a fair town, on the banks of a small river called Avon; and the captain, who had not drowned his humanity in the rough element on which he traded, conveyed me to the prison, where, after searching various apartments, at last I found my fair, afflicted Zaida lying on the ground, with her head on the lap of her women, and the Swede sitting near to guard her. As soon as she saw me her voice failed her; I had almost lost her by an agony of astonishment and joy as soon as I had recovered her. Hours were counted ere she would believe her senses, and even days passed over us in which she sat with a silent admiration, and even still doubts whether all is real."