And curiously enough, they were as anxious to capture human beings as anything: men to man their galleys - slaves chained to the oars did not live long - and women to put in their brothels. The trade in human beings was what made Algerine raids so sickening. The Italians called them Saraceni, Saracens, and there were few towns along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea which had not been raided half a dozen times in the last hundred years or so. The forts which dotted the coast were used mostly to keep a watch for the Saraceni. There were few Tuscan coastal towns that he knew of which did not have some legend about the Saraceni. There was the story of La Bella Marsiliana. Marsilia was a little town just north of Monte Argentario and according to legend the Saracens raided the town. Among the women they carried off was one of great beauty and charm, and when she was brought back to the Saracen headquarters, a prince fell in love with her and married her, and they lived happily ever after.

But the story of La Bella Marsiliana must be a rare one as far as the women were concerned; most of them probably spent the rest of their active lives in brothels, killed off when they were too old to be useful.

No, the Saracens, or Algerines, call them what you will, were barbarians who regarded everyone else as infidels, unbelievers to be enslaved or put to the sword. They were not the sort of people, Ramage thought, to be taken prisoner.

British warships would be welcome at Marsala, Ramage reflected: once the Spanish ports had been closed years earlier so that British ships could not call in for wine for the men's daily ration, one of the favourite replacements had been the wine of Marsala.

The Calypso passed Trapani, with its high striated cliffs, and the great grey castle, centuries old, peered down from the summit of Monte San Giuliano, where it sat four-square in the village of Eryx almost surrounded by pine forests.

Over to starboard were the Aegadean Islands of Levanzo, Favignana and Marettimo, sitting a few miles offshore like giant teeth set in the sea. Ramage thought about calling at the islands to see if they had been raided, but they were almost uninhabited, the haunt of tunny fishermen.

The lookouts had reported a few tartanes, probably carrying salt from the salt ponds round to Trapani itself. Then, beyond the point, the frigate headed south to round Punto Scario and then turn in to Marsala. Ramage had an old history of Sicily in his cabin and he had looked up Marsala. Like most places in Sicily it was ancient, originally Phoenician, and when Rome was busy with Carthage, it became a busy port. The most extraordinary thing that he read was how often the port had been blocked by rocks being rolled into the entrance. The Romans had done it once; then the Venetians had shut it off at the time of the Battle of Lepanto, to make sure that the Saraceni - this time Turks - should not use it. But, according to the book, Marsala had begun to thrive thirty years ago when a couple of Englishmen started to export the local wine to England. The sweet wine, like a heavy sherry, immediately became popular. It was curious how the Royal Navy's demands influenced the fortunes of places: in the West Indies, rum was king because the Navy wanted it to issue to the men, and for ships serving this side of the Atlantic, Spain had supplied much of the wine that replaced the rum, until Spain threw in her lot with France, when Italian wines - and particularly Marsala - came into favour.

So that was how prosperity came to a little port on the south-west corner of Sicily - because its grapes produced a particular wine. At least, not just Marsala itself produced the grapes, the countryside around shared the harvest.

And why, Ramage wondered, was the cathedral of Marsala dedicated to St Thomas a Becket, whose glory surely was to be found at Canterbury?

Southwick walked across to him and said: "At Marsala we have to watch out for II Marrobbio."

"Do we indeed, and what is that?"

"Well, it has three names, depending on which part of Sicily you happen to be in: Marrobbio, Carrobbio and Marrubio. It's a series of waves which can spring up at any time, usually when the weather is calm. The waves are two or three feet high, and they come in surges at intervals ranging from ten minutes to half an hour.

"You get them along the western, southern and eastern coasts of the island but they are most prevalent in the south-western corner -at Marsala, in fact. So we must watch out. We need an extra two or three feet under our keel, and the boat crews need warning to be on the lookout; it's enough to capsize 'em."

"Any other cheerful warnings?" Ramage asked sarcastically.

"No, sir, only that the Marrobbio can churn up a nasty current inside the port."

"What a pity it doesn't catch some of these Saraceni!" Marsala was a sullen, frightened town: when Ramage landed by cutter he was told by the mayor that the Saracens had taken an estimated three hundred men and at least fifty women. The cathedral had been looted along with the town hall and most of the big houses near the quay. In many warehouses big casks of Marsala had been stove in, apparently just deliberate vandalism since none of the wine had been stolen.

"But the boats," one of the men lamented. "They took all our big fishing boats. We've nothing left to fish with or to fetch wood to build new ones."

And that, thought Ramage, covers another of Sicily's tragedies: it is always short of wood. It was said the Phoenicians first cut down all the trees, having learned that was a quick way of reducing the rainfall and turning a place into a desert, and thus making Sicily which cut the Mediterranean in half- uninhabitable and therefore not a threat. Since Phoenician times trees had had a hard time trying to survive in Sicily, and in recent years even bushes were cut down to satisfy the charcoal burners. Without charcoal the people could not cook their food; without wood they could not build the boats to catch the fish to feed on. It was a miracle that people could survive in Sicily, and it was significant that the Saracens came mainly to capture men and women.

When Ramage had himself rowed back to the Calypso he was depressed. First, it seemed tragic that people with so little to lose should be raided by the Saracens and second that the only other thing they had to lose, their very lives, should have been taken to be worn out in the galleys and brothels.

Soon the Calpyso's capstan was turning as the men weighed the anchor, and half an hour later the frigate was stretching along in a northerly breeze heading for a next port along the coast to the eastward, Mazara del Vallo. Quite apart from the distance the Calypso had run, it would not have been hard to identify Mazara because of the many belfries and cupolas. The cathedral had a high cupola with a greyish-red belfry next to it. Another church (Ramage found out later it was called Santa Veneranda) had twin belfries, and the belfry of the church of San Francisco was alone in the north-west part of the port, square and surmounted by a pyramid.

The harbour, such as it was - it was badly silted - stood at the mouth of the 'For rente Mazara, and when the Calypso anchored in six fathoms off the entrance, Southwick reported a bottom of rock and weed. Once again the cutter, which had been towing astern, was hauled alongside and Ramage climbed down following Ren-nick and a dozen Marines.

The story he heard was much the same as at Marsala: men and women had been taken, along with the four biggest tartanes which had been anchored in the harbour. But the surviving people in Mazara were pleased over one thing - the Saraceni had not damaged the statue of St Vitus, the town's patron saint, nor had they discovered a silver statue of him. This was particularly precious and every year it was carried round the town in a colourful procession.