After a long series of wrestling-bouts, the torchères had been extinguished and the Turks and free Algerines had departed, leaving the banyolar to the slaves. Both the starboard and the larboard oars, in their entirety, had now convened on the roof of the banyolar to smoke pipes. The night was nearly moonless, with only the merest crescent creeping across the sky—out over the Sahara, as Jack supposed. Consequently there were more stars out than Jack had ever seen. A few lights glimmered from the embrasures of the Kasba, but other than that, it seemed that these ten galley-slaves had the night to themselves: